Aeonis Infinitus
by In Paradisum
Summary: It begins in innocuous conversations and subtle glances. It isn't long before those turn to separate realizations and kept secrets. A series of glances into Noel and Hope's quickly deepening friendship, and their struggles to come to terms with their changing feelings, whether understood or not. Noel/Hope, set in the Yaschas Massif, Augusta Tower, and Academia. 80% canon.
1. Chapter 1

_hello readers._

_this story consists of five chapters that will tie into the plot of XIII-2 as much as possible. within will also be major BL of the Noehopu variety, though if the rating will be bumped, it won't be for several parts yet. if you can't stand the pairing, you probably shouldn't read._

_also this will be my first honest attempt at finishing a multi-chapter work. if i fall behind in updating, feel free to curse me out in PMs to get me back on track._

_no, i'm serious._

_without further ado, enjoy!_

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><p><em>aeonis infinitus<em>

_chapter 1_

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><p>"<em>Director of Academy Research, Team Alpha. Hope Estheim, at your service. And you, you must be Noel."<em>

Tanned and calloused hands, crisscrossed with the pale white of scars and the dark rope of tribal twine, rested upon the metal railing, grown chill in the perpetual darkness. Even if not for the monstrous fal'Cie hanging far in the sky above Paddra, the ruined stones around him would still have been pockmarked with the shadows of midnight. The eclipse might have been in full force, but humans still had their own biological clocks to punch, as the emptiness and lack of sound told the hunter.

"_Perhaps it's not the recording that's broken… it's the immediate spacetime in which we are located."_

It was a bit like he could see the glimmering light of the gate just out of the corner of his vision, or feel it pulling him towards their next objective regardless of his want for a break, but he'd sooner go toe-to-toe with a Behemoth, alone and weaponless, than voice those thoughts to Serah. His time-travelling companion had seen little to no opportunity to truly rest since they'd left New Bodhum, and he'd be damned if he would interrupt that. Somehow she had made it this far with nary a complaint, even considering the few and fitful hours of sleep they had gleaned in the Academy bunks in Bresha.

Sometimes Noel wondered if her will was simply stronger than his. All things considered, Serah had less of a stake in all of this than he did - she could return home and live out her days in relative safety and happiness, even without her fiancé and sister. It wasn't the events of her history they sought to alter. The soil of her life was rich and verdant; his, his was as white as bone, shifting sands and towering mountains devoid of hope.

And yet - and yet, were either of them to falter and stumble in their conviction, he knew in his heart of hearts it would be himself first.

"Noel."

Though jarred from his spiraling thoughts, the seasoned hunter didn't jolt unduly as he turned, darkened cerulean eyes flickering up from his knuckles. It wasn't so much the approach of another person that surprised him, despite the time, as it was the recognition of who it was joining him at the scaffolding's highest peak. A quick glance took in an Academy uniform, broad shoulders, and New Bodhum's ocean sealed in bright eyes.

"Hope." The brunette man nodded in polite greeting. He chose not to pursue further conversation; instead, he turned to gaze out over the ruins of the city, feeling a silent but palpable connection to the stones beneath him.

_Yeul... I wonder if this happening was something you had seen. Did you know I'd end up here? Is that why you smiled?_

The research director seemed content to keep Noel company by quietly approaching the railing some distance away, rather than leave well enough alone. But then, he couldn't know of the teen's aversion to people – he had only just gotten used to Serah, really, stopped shying away in trepidation when she approached. Such caution was born of loneliness and isolation.

Everyone but Yeul and Caius looked unfamiliar; alien.

"You know a great deal concerning the Farseers," Hope stated suddenly, shattering the almost-companionable silence with a veiled query.

A bolt of unease shot through the hunter as he twisted. "Yeah?" he responded calmly, feigning comfort as he rested his full weight backwards upon the railing, arms folded (as if to separate himself from it all).

Undaunted, the silver-haired man regarded him with an odd look – searching, as if trying to discern something about the brunette merely from observation. There was something eerily methodical about his interest, but at a glimpse of honest curiosity, Noel shifted with disquiet.

Offhand, he noticed that the scientist's eyes reminded him of Yeul's, but possessed a steely sort of detachment – almost like Caius. And he shivered, and thought to himself that he ought to stop floundering in futile memories of the past.

The advent of Hope turning away, his eyes instead dropping to examine the backs of his metal-plated gloves, instilled a sort of melancholy bittersweet taste in the native Pulsian's mouth. Pushing it off, he fiddled with the edge of the leather vambrace on his left arm, eyeing a cleft in the tanned behemoth skin that hadn't been there before.

"I'm glad Serah knows someone like you."

"Why do you say that?" The comment caught him somewhat off-guard, eyebrows reflexively jumping as he regarded the statement at face value. He wasn't sure, yet, how he felt about this conversation – both talking to this stranger (which was what Hope was, despite his and Serah's friendliness, despite their owing him one, even despite his familiar eyes) and being in this place, this desolate relic of his forgotten people, here where he could almost feel the weight of his ancestors pushing down on him and trying to _consume_ him, coveting life –

_Stop being superstitious and snap out of it, _he told himself firmly. Whatever ghosts of the past may have lingered after the civil war, none could harm him now.

And _oh, _he realized after a moment, Hope had begun to answer his defensive question.

"-ow gone, that is," he was saying. "Serah's the kind that always needs someone. I remember Lightning was the exact opposite." A fond sort of half-smile quirked the corner of his lips, and Noel dipped his head in agreement. He had noticed that much from his brief meeting with the woman.

"And Serah, she trusts you." Seemingly uncomfortable with the direction he'd taken, apparently not having wanted to pursue this topic of conversation, Hope's gaze fixed intently on the ground beneath them. "That's proof enough. That you're a good person, I mean."

Not quite sure what to make of that – a thoughtful downturn to his bottom lip, and his questioning eyes lingering on silver hair for a few moments before looking up at Fenrir hanging in the night sky – Noel took the statement firmly to heart. "Thanks," he said, the one word conveying his complete gratitude expertly.

_Even if he doesn't know me at all._

The unusual pair fell silent for a time. Content to maroon themselves in their individual thoughts, they struck a strange image indeed – men of complete opposites, one a healthy wild tan and the other as pale as the winter sun, enjoying the companionship of tacet understanding.

But then Noel sat. Though "sat" was too vague a term – really he sank to the metal panel beneath his sandaled feet with a sigh, folding his arms over his knees and leaning back against a rounded post. At the stirring, Hope looked over with some wry amusement.

"You should get some rest," he remarked once Noel had made himself comfortable. "You'll have a long day ahead of you tomorrow, I think. After all, if paradoxes were easy to solve, we would have done it ourselves." Though upon the last phrase, he frowned. "You do the Academy a great service by offering to lend a hand. I hate to concede that we can't do it, but, well... we can't."

"Not a problem," Noel replied, somewhat muffled by the vague tint of tiredness creeping into his voice. "Serah wants to help, so we'll help. And somehow, I feel like it's something we should do." The hunter snorted. "We ought to call ourselves the paradox brigade. Seeing as taking care of Atlas for Alyssa back then ended up being our job."

Hope's lips twitched. "Fitting." But he made no response, as if... as if encouraging a reply to the first unstated question.

After a long moment, Noel shook his head. "Can't sleep," he confessed. Against his better judgment, he awaited a reprimand –

"_Rest whenever the opportunity arises," the violet-haired man says firmly, tapping a seven-year-old Noel's forehead for emphasis. "There may not be another. You'll learn that quickly."_

"_Fool!" Caius hisses, nearly baring his teeth at Noel, aged twelve, crouching protectively over a prone Yeul – only ten. The boy stares up into the face of doom, eyes watering, and he brushes the unshed tears away pathetically – "You _fool,_" Caius says again. "Mistakes born of ill rest are mistakes preventable. What if you had failed her? What if Yeul had died? _Could you live with that burden_?"_

"_Caius," Yeul rasps, reaching up for the tall man's hand. Her eyes are full of pain – the gash in her side looks vicious, but is a shallow wound, barely dangerous. "Caius, stop..."_

_And through it all, Noel wants to scream, "Where were _you?_"_

"Where were you?" the hunter whispered to himself, knuckles clenching white.

"I see," the young research director said at the same time, causing Noel to glance up, his azure eyes alive with perplexity. It took him a few seconds to teleport back to the present, and when he refocused on the current events around him, his eyebrows crinkled.

_Just stop thinking about it._

"Neither can I," Hope confessed to the empty air. Gloved fingers drummed dully on the steel rail, unaware of or unreceptive to his companion's guarded interest. "Everything that's happened today – it hasn't completely sunk in. I can't help but think about it all."

"Mmm," Noel agreed.

Nearly in tandem, the both of them shivered as a fresh breeze stirred, the rasping of long grass and colorful flowers atop the nearby cliff providing a pleasant, buzzing backdrop. The unfamiliar sound put Noel right back on edge, and he reached back as if to comfort himself with the feel of his double-bladed sword. His hand met only air, and he frowned. _Left it in the bunks with Serah, didn't I? _But at least his hunting knife, sheathed at the small of his back, gave him a little peace of mind.

Watching the movement with impassive eyes, Hope sighed and glanced up at the starry sky once more. "Go sleep, Noel," he said, not unkindly. "There's no telling what awaits you in the future."

The research director turned from his spot, the heels of his boots clacking against the steel as he crossed the platform with muted steps. Upon reaching the downward slope, he paused in his motion, though didn't turn.

"Thank you," he said simply, and continued on his way. Behind him, he left a slightly puzzled young hunter, delicately frowning as he considered the phrase.

* * *

><p>He was visibly shaken after the encounter with Caius and Yeul – <em>not his Yeul, <em>he corrected himself stubbornly, but still the gut-wrenching ache persisted. Seeing a girl with the same face - the same voice as hers again, for the first time since she had died in his arms, was positively jarring. There weren't words to put to the feeling.

Somehow, Serah understood that. She had said as much, and those three words – "I won't ask" – were unexpectedly relieving.

"We'll talk about it soon," he had promised, and he had meant it. But in the interim, he would try to understand and sort out for himself the tumultuous convergence of his emotions. Of course, he felt vaguely guilty for keeping such things from her (Caius did seem to be extremely relevant to both Lightning's plight and the uncertain future fall of Cocoon), but he appeased his conscience with the assurance that soon, they'd have a long talk about it.

Running into the Yeul of 10 AF merely ten minutes later, relative to their perception, though in reality one hundred and ninety years in the past, had only made things worse for Noel. The knife in his chest as he saw the girl's fragile form, so similar to the youth he had lived to protect, twisted each time they spoke to her. And the young seeress had left them with even more questions than answers, having said cryptically that she and Serah were "the same".

The teacher from New Bodhum pondered the statement with innocent curiosity. And Noel?

Noel felt like he was going to be sick.

_There's no way,_ he thought to himself. Prayed to himself, like a mantra. _No way, no way, no way. Serah _can't _have the Eyes of Etro if Yeul is alive here. She wouldn't have lived this long, right? She can't...Yeul _can't _have meant that. She couldn't._

But deep in his chest, he felt his heart sinking.

His attention consumed by such thoughts, the hunter had barely taken in the sight of the southern mountainous area bathed in a warm, natural sunset. The eclipse had dissipated, or perhaps had never been there in the first place.

_If you change the future, you change the past._

So Noel thought as they descended again into the crater-like space that had once been an agora of Paddra, long ago. The two of them navigated their way through researchers, up sets of stairs and inclines of scaffolding, towards Hope and the Oracle Drive; no Academy expendables or military personnel sought to detain them as, due to the urgency with which they moved, it was not unlikely that they were supposed to be there despite their lack of uniforms. His rose-haired companion had begun to lag behind, lost in thought and maybe a little unwilling to comply with the brunette's long strides – but he sought answers, and knew his best bet of getting them was to talk things over with Hope.

The tinny noise of his sandals padding against the almost familiar scaffolding was drowned out by a high-pitched voice, shrill in its excitability; he instantly placed the voice as belonging to Alyssa, Hope's assistant and his and Serah's friend from their time in the Bresha Ruins a day or so ago (to them) or five years previous (to her).

"-o are you waiting for?" she asked someone, out of sight atop the cliff that the path he was following hugged.

"… I don't know," a masculine voice, smooth as velvet, answered her. "But… I think they'll be here soon."

Noel had known it was a possibility (and somewhere, he realized he was eavesdropping), but it still made his chest constrict when he fully realized what had occurred. By resolving the paradox in the future, they had prevented it from existing in the past – thereby rendering null the Yaschas Massif they had known previously, the eclipse having been written out of history itself.

This Hope hadn't yet seen Serah alive and well after ten years. This Hope continued to labor in his research over the course of many long years, through uncountable numbers of sleepless nights, devoid of word of his family.

This Hope was still alone.

Noel's pace slowed, waiting for his shorter companion to catch up. Large blue eyes jumped up to meet his as she climbed the slope and, at the question lingering in robin's-egg depths, he smiled grimly and shook his head.

That was the first moment in which Noel Kreiss had doubted the benevolence of their actions.


	2. Chapter 2

_hi, readers!_

_sorry i'm late. this one was a little harder for me for some reason, probably because i'm not the biggest fan of augusta tower._

_ah well, i hope it's okay. next chapter should come in the next few days so i can get caught up._

_this one is a little more canon-heavy, but chapter 3 has lots of Hope so stay tuned.~_

_enjoy!_

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><p><em>aeonis infinitus<em>

_chapter 2_

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><p>"That was a lot of work for one lousy access key."<p>

The "key from another time" that Mog insisted they needed to fetch was merely an access key from another incarnation of Augusta Tower, somewhere in the future. The short quest to find the key that would unlock the circuits of the board they needed to access was tedious, though it served to further acquaint the human duo and their moogle sidekick to the place where, according to Caius, they were to be "entombed as a consequence" of "learning the forbidden history". Those words lingered in the shadows of Noel's mind, sneering at him in his trepidation.

The panel glowed, accepting the identification card, and the sound of a mechanism springing into action resonated from above them. In tandem, the hunter and ex-l'Cie looked up to watch a circular platform at the tower's center begin to move.

A shock of familiar blond hair, discolored by the ambient glow of the "neon" (another unfamiliar word that Serah spouted like scientists' jargon; to him they were just _bright_) lighting that distracted and damaged his attuned eyes, seized his subconscious attention – he was turning from watching the central elevator's descent before he knew why, a sudden spike in his pulse quite honestly confusing the hell out of him.

"- that Alyssa?" Serah was saying, and he only realized she was speaking when the roar in his ears subsided, attributing the adrenaline rush to exhaustion and shock from spotting the young woman just yards away in a place that he found nearly inhospitable to humans (honestly, how anyone could live or work cooped up in a tower like this, with only circuits and data and that strange glow for company, was beyond him). Not to mention –

"What's she doing in this time period?"

Noel looked over. Serah was doing that thing again, propping her gloved thumb on her upper lip as she considered the finer points of spacetime theory. He had long decided he would leave such thinking to her, or if they were able, Hope and his team in the Academy; after all, they were capable of so much more than a technologically-incompetent hunter hailing from the end of days. For example, he wouldn't know where to even begin building a fal'Cie…

…_the scream of a woman they had passed somewhere behind him sending chills down his spine, and he whirls, and then they are standing back to back fending off winged monstrosities that had been flesh and blood like them not seconds ago. That one there, it looks smaller than the rest, and maybe that's the one the other woman had been crying for, a child torn from its mother and cursed to such a fate._

_A crystal beast swings its spiked arm towards his jaw in a vicious uppercut, and Noel blocks its onslaught with crossed swords, stabbing forward with the left straight into its cursed heart. The sky weeps its sorrows, the falling droplets glistening crimson with billboards and alerts in the city that shone in the dead of night more brightly than the sun, and he is sure Serah weeps too from the way her forearm sweeps briefly and angrily across her face; or perhaps the water and sweat cloud her vision, making it impossible to see the threats before them._

_And so time wanders on._

Shaking himself free of such thoughts, the brunette lifted his chin and ignored the way the corners of his eyes protested the brightness around them. "She does look like Alyssa, but it can't be her," he said bluntly, refusing to get their hopes up. If he was at least somewhere within the range of right about the path they had followed up and down the timeline, their young friend would have been long dead by this year. But he couldn't deny the nagging impression that he was looking at _Alyssa, _not some… impossible representation of her formed of some unknown sorcery, mechanical or otherwise. Thus he decided. "Let's find out for sure."

Serah made a noise of agreement in the back of her throat, and he led the way. Swords drawn in preparation for a security bot surprise attack, he advanced forward over the floating panel (it sagged under his weight, and he stiffened for a split-second before recalling the existence of such things as anti-gravity) and the suspended walkways, until he stood just behind "Alyssa".

The woman turned, mirror-like blue eyes swinging from him to his companion, and tilted her head slightly to the side, blonde almost-curls ruffling as she moved.

"Nice to meet you."

Her tone was eerily flat, and he felt the younger Farron beside him release a sigh of what could have been relief at her words – this confounded him before he remembered where and when they were. Their by-all-accounts ordinary friend showing up well into the future beyond her native era could only have been caused by a paradox; to find she was likely still safe and sound in her own time was definitely something to be relieved about.

"'Nice to meet you'?" Serah quoted, a delicate pink eyebrow quirked in thought as she turned to face him. "She doesn't know who we are. I guess she's not Alyssa after all."

"Alyssa?" the doppelganger enquired, looking at them oddly. Rather belatedly, Noel was hit with the realization that there was only one person he'd ever seen multiple incarnations of in different times, and that was…

_No, _he thought. _Etro, please. Don't tell me you've 'blessed' Alyssa too; she doesn't deserve such a burden._

The strange Alyssa copy was still watching him beseechingly, and Noel rebalanced his stance, changing his lead foot from right to left. "We used to know a girl who looked like you, but that was a long time ago now."

For a moment, she froze – literally froze, as if time as it related to her had paused. And then she bowed, and with a friendly but plastic smile, noted "ah, my apologies. I must recalibrate my previous greeting."

Noel stared.

"It appears that you are acquainted with the Original," she continued, still in that curiously monotone voice.

Unsure how to respond, Noel blinked, his gaze torn from the young woman's copy as Serah shifted uncomfortably. He shared the sentiment – his uneasy feeling was only getting worse, along with his intense headache.

"Original?" he queried, almost before he had comprehended the fact that he had opened his mouth.

The carbon copy's gaze switched back to him, fixing him with an empty stare. "I am a duplicate of the Alyssa Zaidelle entity," she recited. "My design is based on her biophysical data." A friendly grin that obviously didn't reach her eyes spread across her face, and a heavy sensation settled in the pit of Noel's stomach. But before either of them could react, the girl…

she dissolved, fading into a mountain of transparent aqua cubes that roughly equated her size, he thought, before those cubes collapsed too, all but phasing into the floor beneath them.

His companion drew a sudden breath, not quite a gasp, which was all she could manage before "Alyssa" reappeared a ways away, across the gap that separated the inmost ring from the ring on which they stood. She was next to the elevator, now, perfectly emulating her Original's demeanor with a hip cocked and her arms behind the small of her back.

"She's a machine," Serah said quietly.

Noel turned to face his companion, reading a look of partial comprehension on her visage. He, however, was just as lost as before – that couldn't really explain _everything, _could it? But then, he shouldn't doubt the Academy's technical prowess. They had accomplished the impossible any number of times; he, from the dystopian future, should suck it up and take everything at face value.

However, he still yearned for understanding. Perhaps if they could get the real Alyssa and Hope to explain these 'duplicates', Noel might be somewhere closer to _not _drowning in the sea of everything he didn't know.

If they could even explain technology that hadn't been invented yet. And then he frowned – by asking, wouldn't they be the cause of the invention anyway? He was loath to take part in the creation of a closed-loop paradox (he knew that much at least), but he still wondered.

"A fabricated life-form," "Alyssa" corrected, but relented. "Or a living machine; the semantics are irrelevant."

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><p>The elevator jerked, and the semi-opaque force field encircling the round platform coalesced into existence. Alyssa's Duplicate didn't move as she controlled it, taking the ragtag group to the top floor; Noel had become desensitized to her soulless eyes upon learning of the truth of her creation. It was easy to just imagine her as another element of the sterilized scenery, devoid of humans – the Duplicate project also explained Serah's observation of the researchers' "lack of presence".<p>

A sudden lurch jarred Noel from his thoughts, and he heard his partner let out a small "oh!" as she nearly tripped and fell. The platform had become unbalanced, the hunter realized, fumbling for the railing behind him – it shuddered as it rose, and even as he watched, the air around them seemed to thicken with dark ethereal mist.

"What's happening?"

Mog bobbed wildly, a startled "kupo!" escaping him as the disturbance around them wreaked havoc on his aerial balance.

Serah reached up for him and caught the moogle in her arms. "Is this a paradox?" she wondered, glancing at the immobile Alyssa duplicate.

"Go see what's happening," ordered a firm voice distorted by the static of a microphone or a recording. Noel started, a jolt in his pulse born of recognition sending adrenaline screaming through his veins.

_I know that voice –_

Serah stared past him, and Noel followed her line of sight as he turned, catching sight of a multitude of holographic panels glowing as they played back video footage.

"_On it," a scientist standing behind Hope and to the right responds immediately, turning on one heel and striding off into the main expanse of the tower. A moment later, he is sent flying backwards, landing half on his side at the feet of the director and his assistant._

_Alyssa lets out a shrill noise of fear. Squaring himself, a dark shadow passes over Hope's face. "What is this?" he bites out._

_The camera angle changes._

_A veritable army of machines, built by the Academy's own hands, stares down the two humans. Alyssa whimpers, sinks back behind Hope, as if he can protect her from what is surely to be their end._

_To his credit, he tries._

_He goes for his boomerang, but he moves barely an inch before a Dragoon opens fire on the measly duo – he flings his arms in front of his face in a vain attempt to withstand the barrage, but it is too late. It had always been too late._

_Screams. The screen flashes bright – _and the recording disappears.

"Hope-!" Serah's voice shrilled in concern.

Noel's chest was tight. _They-_

The telltale sound of the robotic Alyssa dissolving into data-cubes elicited a quick turn from the pair, the hunter reaching back to arm himself with his dual swords and Mog turning into the bow in Serah's hand. The data-cubes reformed into a horde of enemies, a mix of bots from around Augusta Tower that lurched forward without preamble.

Her hand delving into the small pouch on her right hip, Serah palmed a crystal that glimmered with a dim yellow sheen between her fingers. She stretched back and let it fly – the diminutive crystal bounced off of the "head" of an Orion, exploding in a shock wave of bright light that still made Noel's eyes water despite the number of times he had seen it. A chocobo sprang from the rift between spaces and beset the small droids with its sharp talons, letting out a vicious "_wark_!" of a war-cry as the battle began.

Fueling his onslaught with the hurricane of feelings (the majority of them unexpected) that resulted from the paradox footage of Hope's and Alyssa's deaths, Noel kept close to the ground, low in posture as the Orion swung horizontally to separate his head from his shoulders. He ducked even lower and pushed forward with his toes, swinging his right-hand sword in the pass to clip the mechanical monster's fragile, needle-like legs.

It evaded with a sidestep, firing its engines to dash across the platform directly towards Serah – an arrow released from her bow nearly clipped Noel's ear, but he leaned heavily to the right, knowing her aim was true as the whine of circuits behind him told of the "death" of another bot. Tarrying not, he leaped forward, in hot pursuit of the Orion as it made to cleave his companion across the chest. The Farron woman stumbled backwards, the bow in her left hand metamorphosing into a sword, but not quick enough and it looked as if the security robot's blade would connect –

But then Noel was there, sliding into place with his swords crossed, intercepting the swipe at the last possible moment. His arms strained against the force, sandals slipping against the frictionless surface of the elevator, and he gritted his teeth as he threw his all into fending off the attack.

A blade flashed in the corner of his vision, and Serah opened a gash in the synthetic armor of the massive robot, exposing sparking wires and pushing it off balance the slightest bit. It was all the traction Noel needed to push forward and finally send the Orion reeling; he channeled electricity through his fingers and into his smaller blade, lashing out and sinking the stabbing sword into the opening left by his rose-haired companion.

The pulse bounced from cord to cord within the machine, frying its internal circuitry and causing wisps of smoke to leak out through the holes and gaps in its plating. A well-placed kick from Noel to the center of its "chest" caused the hunk of metal to dissolve into data-cubes and then to nothing.

He turned. The chocobo was just sinking its beak for the final time into the other vespid soldier, the one that Serah hadn't picked off. It, too, disappeared, and the large bird let out a satisfied cry before dissipating into the void.

The crystal it left behind bounced against the lift, rolling to a stop next to Serah's shoe. She bent to pick it up, panting from the exertion of trying very hard not to die; Mog hovered nearby, his little clock-staff in hand.

"What the hell was _that?_" Noel growled, bequeathing of the blond-haired duplicate that had returned once they had dealt with the enemies. His form quivered with barely-contained energy, stemming both the winding down from the conflict and pent-up emotions from the paradox footage that he couldn't even begin to sort out (and why he was so emotional, he refused to address). Tanned hands tightened around the handles of his blades; he was too tense, too expectant of another assault, to sheathe them just yet.

"This was an effect of the paradox," the duplicate droned flatly. "You just witnessed an event that took place on this spot one-hundred and eighty-seven years ago."

Serah squinted through the paradoxical fog that still hadn't dissipated. "Wait a minute," she said softly. "So, you're saying the real Hope and Alyssa were murdered?"

"Yes. After the tower was completed." Duplicate Alyssa's face was expressionless as her blank eyes met Noel's and Serah's. "During the Proto fal'Cie development project, the artificial intelligence and humans came into conflict."

The hunter went cold. "The artificial intelligence killed them?" he asked. "Because they were in the way?"

_So they were the harbingers of their own doom…_

"I'm afraid so," the duplicate confirmed, a pawn of the AI along with everything else in the tower. And she dissolved once more.

* * *

><p>They survived the second clash with a few new bruises to show for it. Alyssa's Duplicate was back again, but Noel and Serah ignored her for the moment; instead, Serah turned to him and looked up with saddened blue eyes. "Hope and the others were killed in this tower." The pink wisps of her side-ponytail wavered as she glanced at the Duplicate. "And then after they were dead, the AI took control of the Academy."<p>

"The broken fal'Cie," Noel surmised right back, remembering shrill screams and rain, "was created by a broken artificial intelligence." He made a strangled noise of defeat, glancing away. "Humans were betrayed, and then they were wiped out."

Serah nodded glumly. "And the duplicates were mechanical puppets that were built to hide what happened."

_Thunk. _A metrodroid collided with the elevator platform. Alyssa was gone again.

They knew what came next.

* * *

><p>"You two have seen it now," she said. "You've seen the forbidden history. People who know too much have to be buried."<p>

And once more, she vanished. Noel and Serah both flinched backward, the former raising his blades and the latter reaching for Mog – but, a jolt and a click later, the elevator ground to a halt on a floor they didn't recognize.

"It stopped moving," Serah said. Her voice was desolate as her eyes took in their surroundings.

"Hm," Noel agreed. The shadow of a frown jerked at the corners of his lips. "Looks like they closed the door on us."

They fell silent for a moment.

The hunter turned. "Well, now we've seen the forbidden history," he said. "Does that mean we're stuck here for good?" _What a place to die. To think we – I came this far, only to end up here._

"Do you remember what Caius said? In his memory, the next thing that happens is… we die."

Inwardly, Noel smiled humorlessly. _Yeah, Serah, I remember. Caius never really leaves my mind, you know. Everything that's happened to me is because of him – everything good, and everything bad._

But rather than articulate his bitter thoughts, he confirmed aloud the suspicions he had had all along. "That's why he acted the way he did. As far as he was concerned, we were supposed to be dead." _I know it wasn't him in Academia. I know that, whoever that was, he didn't feel like Caius. _"He saw us two hundred years later, assumed it was a paradox and tried to get rid of us." _He doesn't want me dead… back then, he wanted _me _to kill _him. _Back then..._

He pushed those speculative thoughts away. There would be time later for dissecting his memories of Caius.

"But there's a way out," Serah stated hopefully. "If we can survive now, instead of dying, that will automatically change history." She smiled slightly. "We can change the future."

"Agreed." _Somehow, we have to stop that proto-fal'Cie, and save Hope. _(For some reason, he could feel his neck begin to flush.) "Alyssa and Hope's fate are in our hands. It's not over yet – not by a long shot."

Maybe their meddling would affect others' lives for the worse; maybe they would cause damage they never intended. Maybe they would eliminate entire futures from the timeline, like they had in the Yaschas Massif.

But Noel would do it. He would do whatever it took to ensure Hope's survival. He had to.


	3. Chapter 3

_hi, readers! i'm back!_

_there's really no excuse as to why this has been sitting so dead for nine months. just lost the zeal for the idea, i guess._

_everything changed when the fire nation attacked... no, okay, honestly, i've had an influx of muse for xiii-2 and noehopu lately, and a few ideas for scenes in this chapter and the next two have been eating my brain, so i finally sat down and wrote it on my days off of work._

_anyway, for being so patient, this chapter's almost double the length of the other ones so far! also hope's POV debuts in the beginning, but it flips around between him and noel and a little bit of omniscience later on. (i'm sorry, i find alyssa intriguing, i couldn't contain myself.)_

_as always, enjoy!_

* * *

><p><em>aeonis infinitus<em>

_chapter 3_

* * *

><p><em>"Don't go getting lost in that storm, hey?"<em>

The sound of footsteps and cheerful calls clashed with the pitter-pattering that echoed from the peaked roof high above. The walls inside the building were dark and chill, lit by the pallid glow of green neon strips that lined the ceilings.

Of course, the room had a window – a large bay that overlooked the new Cocoon from the sixth-hundred-and-forty-sixth floor – but any natural light provided by the fixture filtered into nothing but a gloomy sort of bluish-gray.

Hope leaned back in his chair. Its stiffened foam back was surprisingly comfortable, designed for long periods of use, and the wheels of the office chair were smooth and soundless on the iron-gray carpeting.

He folded his hands across his lap, and thought on how he missed his old favorite chair, the one that had been with him since college, with the familiar tear on the underside of the left arm that he often toyed with when he thought. Hope had caught himself thrice trying to do the same, falling short when the tips of his fingers came up bluntly against the reinforced industrial seam.

He was a pattern-oriented man, and felt no need to apologize for such. And though he might be modest, no amount of dodging and diverting could hide the accomplishments for which he was directly or indirectly responsible.

The Academy of this time, four hundred years after its inception, struggled to keep up with the reputation of one of its founders. But what they had failed to account for was his humanity.

A knock resounded through the room. "Mr. Estheim?" a voice called inquisitively, and Hope sat up, straightening his posture.

"Come in," the adviser responded, his hands coming to rest upon his desk, one bare palm upon the cool glass and the other on the discarded pair of gloves that belonged to him. The mahogany door in front of him, a full twenty paces forward from his seat, swung open smoothly, gliding on oiled hinges that spoke volumes of the lengths the Academy had gone to in an effort to make the former Director feel "comfortable". And in from the hallway stepped the current Director.

Samuel Belhart was a short and thin man who appeared rather unassuming in build and demeanor, a young man of twenty-five with a snub nose and a white beret perched haphazardly upon his messy brown hair. He had been the first person to greet Hope and Alyssa when they awoke from their suspension (as Hope had taken to calling it), and had even been thoughtful enough to bring a pot of tea with him. Of course, the seven or eight researchers that had followed Director Belhart thought it was the strangest thing, but Hope was oddly touched by the gesture.

In all of his quirks, the man reminded him rather of a male Oerba Dia Vanille. The offhand thought made something twist in Hope's chest, and the shadow of something like grief crossed his face in an instant. He hid it well, and covered the feeling with an amiable smile as Director Belhart leaned in the doorway.

"Mr. Estheim, pardon my intrusion; I just wanted to make sure you can get to your lodgings easily enough, especially in this weather. Academia can be perplexing enough when it's sunny, even to a native. Do you need-"

Hope shook his head before Samuel could complete his sentence. "I appreciate your concern," he said, "but I can manage. You've already done more than enough, Director."

Belhart flushed, Hope's use of the title apparently striking something within him. However, he rocked back on his heels uneasily. "Are you certain, Mr. Estheim?" he tried once more.

With a quirk to his lips, Hope nodded. _He's really concerned. _"I will be fine," he reiterated. "But Director, if you could do me a favor?"

"Anything, Mr. Estheim," the Director said quickly.

"Could you make sure my assistant gets home safely?" he asked, a subtle switch being thrown from friendly to serious. "I wouldn't ask, but..."

"Of course, of course!" Belhart nearly stumbled over himself to say, something that still surprised Hope time and again. No matter how he tried, he couldn't quite get used to the way people didn't see _him _when they looked at him; they saw what he had been driven to accomplish, the myths that had sprung up around him. They saw the fabled Director, the heroic ex-l'Cie partially responsible for humankind's liberation from the fal'Cie.

People fell over themselves for a glimpse of Mr. Estheim. And in all of that time, they weren't seeing him for who he was.

"And Samuel?" he called, just as Director Belhart was stepping out the door. The man turned and looked back in, hazel eyes wide.

"Y-yes, sir?" he stammered, seeming almost frightened.

"Please," the silver-haired man said, rising to his feet behind his desk. "Call me Hope."

Taken aback, the current Director blinked once. Then twice. "As you wish, Mr. Est- Hope," he hurriedly corrected himself.

"Thank you." Hope sat back down. "Good night, Director Belhart," he said, a gentle and friendly dismissal but a dismissal nonetheless. The light in the room had grown even dimmer, the sounds of the raindrops pattering against the window increasing in volume. The storm was worsening. "Safe traveling."

"You as well," Samuel responded automatically. "Good night, Hope."

He watched the door click closed, and watched it for a little while longer, staring vaguely into space. After a few moments, Hope stirred, marveling at the silence that pervaded the gargantuan building once most of its employees had left. For a city so large, so busy, it seemed almost unnatural for his surroundings to be so quiet.

Left alone with his own thoughts, Hope stood from his expensive chair, splaying his hands on his expensive desk, glancing around at his new and expensive office.

He found himself longing for his base of operations in the ruins of Paddra – the tiny ten-paces-by-ten tent, the sturdy little desk, a construct of oak both unadorned and homely. Here in the future, he felt as if he were being treated as a priceless artifact being sealed in a display case, instead of a person. A researcher, part of the ranks, part of the community.

It was as if an invisible pane of glass separated him from everyone else.

_This must be how Serah and Noel feel, _he realized. _I admired their ability, to travel through time – envied it, perhaps. But if this is what it's like, their gift seems more and more like a curse._

He picked up the wire-trim picture frame perched on his desk, the only ornament besides a stack of summaries and memos and a laptop. From the frame, a crouched Vanille grinned up at him, a stoic Fang lurking in the background. The picture was incredibly old – it had survived the War of Transgression and the catastrophe both.

Hope recalled the first time he had seen the picture, sinking back into his chair with it clasped in his hands.

_They are all crammed into the minuscule room, all six of them, and Hope is half-leaning against the wall as Vanille pushes past him in excitement. Muffled cursing comes from behind him – Snow has smashed his forehead against the low doorframe as he tries to duck inside with them._

"_Fang," Vanille chirps in her distinct Pulsian twang, "Fang, everything's still here, look! Remember those boxes? You taught me how to make them when I was eight, and oh, I was so proud of 'em, they're just so cute –"_

"_Yeah," Fang cuts her off firmly but with a wide grin, "I remember."_

_Lightning's looking on the spectacle of the two women with an odd smile, and a shadow in her eyes that looks a lot like nostalgia. Sazh is under the table, toying with Bhakti, and Snow's mouth echoes in from the doorway as he tries again to fit his massive bulk in the room._

_And Hope? Hope is marveling at just how _different _everything looks on Pulse. The materials are different – wood, while an expensive commodity in Cocoon, is plentiful here, while the sleek metal so reminiscent of the floating continent is absolutely nowhere to be found._

_It is then his eyes fall upon the picture propped up on the table. No one notices him when he picks it up, _really _notices, as the spark of recognition lights on his face – we _have a family photo like this,_ he thinks. _And_ I'm _the Fang_._

_The thought strikes a chord within him, and he regards the picture a bit differently, a flutter of empathy as he thinks about what Fang and Vanille must have been like, before... now. Even before the War of Transgression. What were they like in childhood? He wonders this to himself, setting the picture frame gently back down and casting one last glance around the abandoned home, as its impromptu occupants file out in some semblance of an orderly fashion, off to continue their search._

He had not thought to use technology to improve the picture an iota – despite suggestions from colleagues who had caught glances of it, it still retained the age-spots and watermarks it had had when he had first seen it.

It was beyond him to explain why he had felt it necessary to retrieve the picture, after the Fall. Perhaps it had something to do with that futile wish of his... the wish for this future to be undone, replaced with one that included all of them.

He couldn't say.

_I wanted to change history._

His fingers twitched.

_Make things better._

When had that changed? _Had _it? The thought had not been on his mind for three hundred and ninety years, give or take a week. Despite the fact that he had _done it, _in a certain manner – accomplished his own form of time travel – he no longer felt an insatiable longing to undo the mistakes of the past. Rather, he fought to create a better future, using the knowledge gained from costly faults gone by to craft a new ark.

It could have been that the knowledge that Cocoon would have been doomed to fall in a century had somehow influenced the shift in thinking.

Resting his elbows on his desk, Hope leaned his head into bare hands, closing his eyes as silver locks spilled out from between his fingers.

He was almost certain that that had not been the case.

It was some hours later before he nearly tumbled in the front door of the small apartment, having been leaning against the door when he inserted the key into the lock; a force of habit, as he had dealt with several doors with deadbolts that didn't quite unlock correctly unless the door was in _exactly _the right position. He had forgotten that he was in 400 AF now, and unlocked doors were typically motion-triggered.

But that was semantics. What mattered was fumbling for the light switch (also an advanced technology, but in this form the button was also a heat sensor; apparently, if one's skin was particularly cold, it would also turn on the central heat) – when he found the switch and pressed it, a row of incandescent hanging lights over the breakfast bar turned on, as well as a tall lamp in the corner of the small living room.

Hope looked over the lodgings approvingly, pulling the Academy loaner rain jacket off of himself and hanging it up in the entryway. His boots were also discarded there, opting to trod barefoot but still in uniform through the three-room apartment, hunting for a small towel to dry his hair with.

The ex-Director was slightly surprised at the amount of relief he felt when, by a cursory examination, he found there _not _to be a Duplicate waiting to greet him in the bedroom or bathroom. He wasn't a social enough animal to be able to stand another presence around at all times, even if the presence wasn't quite human. (Animals were different. He had always wanted a cat, but his mother had been allergic.)

Rain dashed against the large bay window in the living room, smearing the neon lights outside into a blur of blue and green. He thought he might have heard thunder rumbling overhead, but wasn't sure; regardless, he strode over to the curtains, a flat grey to match nicely with the white walls, and tugged them shut. The lighter grey carpeting tickled his bare soles, and he stood for a moment, gazing at and past the fabric in front of him, just breathing.

He was here. Four hundred years after the catastrophe that had altered the course of humankind – a catastrophe he had been intimately and irrevocably involved in. Three hundred and ninety years since last seeing Noel and Serah in person – three hundred and eighty seven since he and Alyssa had gambled their lives on a chance.

And they had made it.

Hope turned and walked away from the curtain, slowly and steadily at first. Then his pace quickened, and so did his breathing; his heart pounded against his ribs, and he was all but running into the adjacent bedroom, pale skin squeaking on the synthetic linoleum on the floors of the kitchen.

The scientist collapsed on the unfamiliar bed, drawing his arms around his torso, trying to hold himself together. Shivers racked his body – he was shaking uncontrollably, feeling as if he would shatter to pieces if his grip were to loosen. Sweat slicked his brow, and his breaths came quick and light.

_You're having an anxious attack, _the small portion of his mind that retained rationality pointed out. _Breathe slower. The surplus of oxygen will cause you to faint. Breathe slower._

He could have sworn, in that moment, that those had not been his own thoughts. They were comforting; soothing, low but not deep (and what would Alyssa - or maybe Elida - have called that? A baritone?), and familiar.

The distraction from the thoughts that had triggered the attack had already caused him to begin recovering, but he still felt dizzying vertigo from the influx of oxygen.

_That's it. In... and out._

Hope obeyed without thought, drawing in a shaky breath slowly – three counts – then releasing it.

_In._

The adrenaline in his veins still burned as it raced through his system, but his heart rate was slowing. The fuzzy halo of light to his left began to resolve into a bedside lamp once again.

_Out._

Instead of exhaling proper, the young man sighed deeply, pulling his hands away from himself and dropping his head into them for the second time that day. His body still quivered slightly, the tremors racking him intermittently.

_I... would suppose that anyone who jumps around the timeline once or twice is entitled to a moment of weakness._ The thought came without provocation, and he frowned slightly at himself for it. _I'd thought that I'd have been prepared for this. If I am having anxious attacks, I wonder how Alyssa is doing... should I go check on her?_

_No, _he decided a moment later. _She'll think I don't have faith in her to hold herself together._

"She's the more bullheaded out of the both of us, as it is," Hope said out loud to himself regarding his assistant. The words resonating for a moment in the empty air gave him a small amount of comfort. Releasing the last difficult breath, the young scientist hefted himself off of the decently-sized bed (a king, which he supposed was partially due to his height), and began his nightly routine – as usual as always, albeit in different quarters.

A time later, steam hissed and danced through the small bathroom, pressing fingers against the cool glass of the mirror and leaving cloudy marks of its passage. The silver-haired man frowned into the looking glass, thinking on his situation at length.

It seemed to him that he had been more prone to weakness than he – or anyone else – had thought. Even the strongest will had a point of fragility.

But perhaps there was no shame in momentary weakness; perhaps there was no shame on allowing others to help him carry his burden.

Perhaps his real fault was in his own zealous self-reliance. He, too, had failed to account for his humanity.

* * *

><p>"Noel?"<p>

The "flight" through the Historia Crux was repetitive enough by now that the hunter found it strangely easy to slip into his thoughts, watching the stone rings and reddish-orange of netherspace float by almost uncomprehendingly.

He was still shivering from the proto-fal'Cie encounter. The conflict himself wasn't what had stayed with him; it was the nature of the creature that the Academy had created. A sentient being, able to manipulate time and in possession of almost godlike abilities... to Noel, it seemed as if the scientists had been engineering their own destruction.

And how had they beaten it?

All he knew was that Serah's outburst at Hope had somehow affected the passage of time in the crossroads. How it had resulted in the monster's own deletion, he refused to even speculate.

Jarred from the dead-end of his own retrospection, he blinked and glanced upward and to his right, at the young pink-haired woman who was his companion. Her arms were wrapped 'round herself, holding Mog close as the poor moogle took a little bit of a breather. (They had tried throwing him at the proto-fal'Cie at first, hoping he could spot a weak point. That venture had not ended well.) Light blue eyes, clouded with thought, stared back at him as she worried her bottom lip between her teeth.

"I," she tried saying. Her voice faltered; she cleared her throat and tried again. "I don't – where this Gate leads – _ugh,_" she grumbled, seemingly irritated at her inability to articulate her own thoughts.

The hunter knew her pain. The adrenaline crash after the fight (fights, really) had left him feeling lethargic and clumsy. It was really quite convenient that the Historia Crux didn't require much physical effort; he was sure that if he had had to walk, his knees would have given out on him.

They were both in need of a break. A nice, long nap, and maybe a bath in there somewhere too.

"I don't know where we're going," she said finally. "There. I said it. I mean, I didn't see anything about where this Gate is going to come out… we could end up in the middle of a battlefield. I'm worried," the young woman confessed. "I don't know if I could do Augusta Tower right now, all over again."

Noel didn't respond for a moment; instead he folded his arms, and kicked himself up onto his back, lounging as they floated through the void. It was at least a moment before he spoke. "I think we'll be fine," the brunette attempted to reassure his companion quietly. "I can't explain it, but… I have this feeling that where we're going is somewhere safe. It's like a warmth in my chest." He splayed a hand over his heart for emphasis, not really looking at Serah, but more to the right of her side ponytail.

"Hey, how come the weird stuff always happens to you?" the younger Farron giggled, raising her eyebrows at him.

"Which one of us is the monster tamer, again?" he shot back with a grin.

"Okay, okay, you win," she conceded, her tone becoming more serious. "I just hope your feeling's right."

He couldn't agree more.

* * *

><p>"So, Director. Explain yourself."<p>

Alyssa's arms were half-folded on the café table, partially gloved palms cupped around a mug of steaming coffee. Her eyes were bright, but her mouth was set rather petulantly, as she regarded her companion with a look of strained patience.

Across from her, lips pressed into a thin line, was Hope. He was looking out the large window of the café, situated slightly above Grand Avenue in the eastern corner of Academia. The myriad of people wandering below presented the perfect excuse for deliberately not looking at his assistant. Instead, he raised his own mug to his lips – black coffee, as per usual – and blinked as the blonde across from him sighed.

"We could be drawing out our methodology for our research on the Thirteenth Ark, Director. I don't see what the point of a coffee date is, frankly."

"If I know you as well as I think," the silver-haired man said suddenly, looking at her wryly as he set the pseudo-ceramic down on the tabletop, "you did all of that last night, too excited to leave it until morning."

"I –" Alyssa stammered, flushing a delicate shade of pink. She didn't bother arguing. Hope's pointed look was embarrassing enough. The young woman was now more thankful than ever that this table was hidden in the back corner of this small restaurant, so that no one could see her blushing this badly; in less than twelve hours, the two of them had been catapulted to superstardom, living examples of human innovation and possibility.

She felt that description was more accurate when applied to the city. "I'm sorry, Director Hope," she apologized, lacing her fingers together. "It's just – it's hard to sit still right now. We're here, we're in the future, and look at what the Academy's done! None of that work went to waste. And your ideas back when we started created all of this now. Academia wouldn't exist if not for you," she said pointedly. "I can't believe everything that's been accomplished in three hundred and eighty seven years…" Her lip puffed out in somewhat of a childish manner. "I want to explore. At least a little bit, before we really have to get to work. You know?"

Hope's expression as Alyssa spoke shifted from humor, to seriousness, to thoughtfulness; his lips quirked slightly as he took in her sentences, as the words started to rush the more excited she got. He wondered, idly, if he was the only one with timeline shock; if the young woman across from him had truly adapted so quickly as to feel right at home after seventeen hours.

From the way her fingers strained on the cup, though, he doubted that was the case. Every time she looked around, her eyes widened slightly, as if unused to seeing so many people collected in one area, uncaring of needs or protection. That he could identify with… as well as the slight agoraphobia that had reared its ugly head in Palumpolum when he had been a l'Cie.

"_I am a Pulse l'Cie!" Snow is yelling, his finger pinning the trigger down, unleashing as many rounds as had been in the rifle into the outcropping above him. "And I'm here to kill you all!"_

_Except he's not. He knows the military is coming, has seen what PSICOM will do to innocents if they come within a kilometer of him and his friends._

_They flee like sheep. Hope is the only one who does not follow them; a concerned older woman tries to pull him with, but her eyes find the black mark on the back of his left wrist, and she screams and lets go of him as if he is on fire._

Crowds had never been as kind to him since.

Hope blinked as he realized the train of thought had led him away from the present, turning his head just slightly to keep Alyssa in his line of sight. She is biting down on her lip, looking at him pointedly.

It is only then that he realizes her question had not been rhetorical.

"Nothing's wrong with curiosity," he said quietly, almost speculatively, as if he was not quite in the present yet. And perhaps he wasn't, as he pulled his hands away from the mug of coffee and rested his chin on them, elbows propped on the table and fingers laced together as well. _How do I say "I've got a feeling I can't shake that we have to be here?" I can't. She'll think the stress has gotten to me._

_Has it?_

"… Director?" Alyssa Zaidelle inquired, sensing that he had been about to say more. Silver locks ruffled as he shook his head, though, responding to the non-articulated question.

Her gaze softened slightly, recognizing the collection of wrinkles in his forehead as one of confusion and uncertainty.

"Well," she said firmly, but gently, standing and clutching the empty mug in her hand, "Director Belhart's giving a briefing on these Graviton Cores we're looking for in about a half hour. I'm going to go, but I'll take notes for you if you decide not –"

Hope's critical frown cut her off, an expression that said quite clearly _surely you don't expect me not to do my own work?_

Alyssa's face broke into an impish smile. The expression caught the older man off guard; blinking owlishly, he stood for a moment staring after her as she strode away, setting her mug on the countertop and exiting the establishment.

A chill feeling of foreboding crept down his spine as he considered how many signals he had missed, misinterpreted, or unknowingly responded to… if it had taken him this long to realize.

_This is a problem._

* * *

><p><em><em>"What - ?"

Serah gasped as she rose from her crouching position, looking around at the buildings that rose above and around her. Vehicles raced by in the air between the skyscrapers, and the bright noon sun caught every inch of metal – of which there was a lot – and cast it agleam, shining in their eyes.

The city was familiar, of course. Except last they had visited, the city had been undergoing the extermination of mankind at the hands of a rampaging, broken fal'Cie.

Her mouth was just as agape as Noel's, as he took a tentative step forward, hair swaying slightly in the breeze. His voice was full of awe.

"We did it." He said it in wonderment. "We actually did it."

Looking back at him, Serah nodded softly. Mog floated between them.

"Yeul must be happy now," she said, looking wistful.

It was a while before he spoke; they took the moving sidewalk down from the Gate, stepping onto a walkway that seemed clogged with people. The walls were low, and children ran and played, despite the fact that it looked like a five hundred story or so drop straight down if one were to trip – _how are they so careless? _Noel wondered. _It's gotta be dangerous to push and shove like that, but no one's stopping them._

They were all so carefree, it almost seemed odd. But the sight tugged at his heartstrings; he knew who this reality should have been for.

"This is what you wanted to see, wasn't it?" It was said to himself, the thought trailing off as his attention was captured by a strange feeling in his breastbone. _What –_

"Welcome," a familiar voice tugged him from his introspection, wrapping around him like a comforting blanket, "to the future you saved."

The hunter whirled around, caught by surprise. His throat seemed to stop working at the sight of the other man alive and well, when last he had seen him, he had been dead a hundred and ninety years previous, and – _how? What?_

"_Hope?" _he blurted out without warning, and beside him, his younger companion stiffened slightly, feeling a shift in the air. (Her thoughts spun. Something felt different, but she couldn't place what.)

"Hello, Noel, Serah," the young scientist said, inclining his head at both of them. "I suppose I should explain why we're here, but now is not the time." Alyssa glanced at him questioningly, but he continued speaking. "I think I know just the place…"

His assistant caught on immediately at his pointed glance. "Oh! I know where you're talking about. Here, I'll lead." The intelligent young woman leaped forward and caught Serah by the wrist, tugging her ahead and chatting animatedly with her; the Farron seemed surprised at first, but quickly warmed up again to Alyssa's topic of the very best boutiques she'd found in the area.

"Noel," the Director said, glancing at the brunette somewhat stiffly, as if restraining himself from turning fully to face him.

"Hope," Noel responded, with no such qualms about interacting. In fact, he couldn't contain his next action; having noticed that most of the citizens of the city were largely ignoring their presence, he acted on the urge – to wrap his strong arms around the slightly shorter man and pull him close.

The silver-haired man's response was not immediately to push away, oddly enough. It took him a moment or two to register what was happening, and another moment before he started to try to pull away from his friend's unusually affectionate gesture. He was not a contact person. "Noel –"

"Don't ever do something so stupid as try to build a fal'Cie again, you hear me?" Noel's breath was warm against the side of his head, the words tangling in Hope's hair and catching in his ribcage, near his heart. "You're smarter than that. You have no idea how worried I was, and I don't know why, I just _was._"

"Noel, what –"

"Not now. Later," the hunter said suddenly, and pulled away from the older man, turning and walking off in the direction Serah and Alyssa had gone at a rather fast clip to try to catch up with them.

Hope Estheim had no choice but to stand and stare and attempt to swallow in the wake of Noel Kreiss, uncertain as to why his internal organs were doing such strange things as twisting themselves inside-out. It took him several moments to compose himself, and he was thankful only that he knew where he was going – it had been his idea, after all.

He didn't know how an unusual young man from seven hundred years into his future could have such an effect on him.

But he knew with certainty that it was a mystery he couldn't leave unsolved, even if he tried.


	4. Chapter 4

_hi readers!_

_i've been plugging away at this chapter for awhile and i finally did what i wanted to do with it - except it's longer by itself than the entire fic thus far. so it's a long one. it all needed to go together, though, so i couldn't really split it. i think you'll like what's inside, though! let's just say our favorite boys are emotionally incompetent._

_about 90% of this chapter was beta edited by the lovely Mara, or tumblr user feels-everywhere. snaps to her!_

_i'm updating this quick before work, so the format might be a little weird until i get to fix it. it's all set to go otherwise, though._

_enjoy!_

* * *

><p><em>aeonis infinitus<em>

_chapter 4_

* * *

><p>"So, Serah... tell us what you've been up to for all this time."<p>

Alyssa's smile was wry, curling like a smug cat, obviously a little pleased and self-satisfied to utter her next few words. "It has been three hundred and ninety years since the Yaschas Massif, after all."

Serah smiled back at the blonde scientist, not commenting on her tone; it seemed she felt as if it wasn't something that ought to be addressed._ Of course she's entitled to a little bit of gloating,_ she thought to herself. _She and Hope did the impossible. Time travel without a Gate – who'd have thought?_

Her companions were not as serene, however. Hope's face maintained a careful mask of apparent indifference, but there was an ever-so-slight creak of leather as his gloves tightened around the handle of the coffee mug. Across from him, Noel's mouth pressed together in a thin line.

He couldn't explain why, but an oddly chill feeling passed down his spine at her words. As if someone had "walked over his grave", his grandmother would have said.

The hunter decided he needed a good night's sleep, with a nice soft bed, and – what had Serah called it – a shower? That thing he had experienced in Bresha and immediately fallen in love with? Something like that.

Noel tried to remember when they had last slept. The Void Beyond seemed like several lifetimes ago to him. Behind his eyelids, when he blinked, he saw neon strips and screaming people.

Serah noticed her companion begin to doze off slightly, and nudged his calf with her foot as she answered her friend's question. "Well," she began, "we saw my fiancé."

Periwinkle eyes flicked to the side, judging Hope's (lack of) response before continuing.

"Snow's safe and sound like always. He helped us resolve a paradox in the Sunleth Waterscape... and then he..."

The pink-haired woman cleared her throat. "Then we ended up here. But not really here – it was an Academia where the Proto-fal'Cie Project had been completed."

Both of the scientists sat up a little straighter. Though the project had been cancelled before any headway had truly been made, Hope had always wondered _what if?_ Apparently, that possibility was one Serah and Noel had dealt with. Against his better judgment, he was interested in the tale for more than one reason.

"As soon as we touched down, the thing went rogue," Noel cut in, not liking the glint in Hope's or Alyssa's eyes_. I hope they learned their lesson about fooling around with things like that,_ he thought to himself quietly. _I don't want to have to drag Hope out of the clutches of some lesser god again. _"It started making Cie'th out of everyone in sight, blocked off escape routes, stuff like that."

The statement gave the silver-haired scientist pause. Something hard settled into the pit of his stomach.

He hadn't known how that project had ended. Only that it had been bent on killing Noel and Serah in the vision recorded in the Oracle Drive. But turning innocents into Cie'th...

"Like Eden," Hope said quietly, and Serah nodded solemnly.

"Yes," she agreed. "That was one of –" Noel's foot tapped her own suddenly, and she glanced to her left, looking into her companion's unreadable blue eyes.

"- Er, _the_ reason we knew we had to keep you from building the proto-fal'Cie," she trailed off, the awkwardly truncated clause hanging in midair between the four of them.

Alyssa must not have sensed the pause, for she powered through the silence that ensued, clapping her hands onto the table and rising out of her seat slightly. "So? So?" she inquired. "What did you do?"

Serah told the story of Academia and Augusta Tower, deliberately leaving out the part in which they had learned of Hope's and Alyssa's deaths in that timeline, as her companion wordlessly beseeched her with the applied pressure on her left foot. She described the Alyssa duplicate in full, as the young woman wanted to know which was the more attractive of the two (to which they both responded hurriedly "you, of course").

And finally, she explained the fight against the proto-fal'Cie, and how, in a moment of epiphany, she had yelled out to Hope in anger.

"But," she said, staring down into her caramel cappuccino, which was steadily going cold between her palms, "I don't really know how it worked. It just did."

Hope smiled at her knowingly. "That's our part of the story," he began.

"That moment had been seen by a Yeul in the past. The vision was recorded in the Oracle Drive, and we witnessed the vision soon after we had drawn up the plans for the Proto-fal'Cie Project. I managed to convince the researchers and the Academy to abandon it."

His voice dipped.

"Team Alpha was especially displeased."

"Hope..." The younger Farron felt a small bit of guilt for that, but she could not articulate her thoughts into words.

Nonetheless, Hope seemed to understand what she had been trying to say, and shook his head slightly, taking a sip of his coffee before responding.

"It was a flawed project," he said sincerely, failing to notice Noel suddenly relaxing and leaning back against the plastic booth. "I know that now. I tried to ignore everything I had learned as a Pulse l'Cie of the nature of fal'Cie," and Alyssa stirred slightly (it was unusual to hear the Director speak of events before the Fall, however vaguely; even history books were left wondering as to what his role had been with any real certainty), "and that caused millions to experience a fate worse than death." His shoulders heaved in a silent sigh. "It was a mistake that shouldn't have been made."

The silver-haired man smiled without much humor.

"A paradox, if you will."

Against the mood of the conversation, Serah giggled quietly.

"Looks like we can't avoid them, no matter where we go," she joked slightly, glancing to the left to look at the hunter critically for not entering the discussion. But, at the sight that met her eyes, her gaze softened. She turned back to Hope. "You'll have to excuse him. We're both a little worn out..."

The adviser quirked an eyebrow at the sight of Noel passed out against the back of the booth, a marginally peaceful expression present on his countenance. "It appears so," he said mildly, seeming to fade off into his own little world for a moment or two.

However, he returned to the conversation abruptly. "Feel free to use my lodgings to rest until you've fully recovered. You've earned it – both of you."

Serah nudged Noel awake as Hope gave them directions to his apartment, and the hunter blinked groggily, raising a hand to his head.

It wasn't very like him to just fall asleep without warning. But, he supposed, he'd pushed his body beyond its limits these past few... days? Years? He didn't even know what to call it anymore.

And it wasn't his fault the silver-haired man across the table from him had such a soothing voice. Definitely not his fault. At all.

"Director," Alyssa said to Hope, bumping her shoulder against his, "it's rude to expect Serah and Noel to want to share a room. They're probably sick of each other by now, you know." She flashed a knowing smile at Serah. "You can use mine and hog the entire bed to yourself, how's that sound?"

The blonde woman pulled the access card key out of her pocket and handed it to the younger Farron across the table, who reached to take it, careful not to jar the sleeping Mog in her lap.

"Thanks, Alyssa," the young woman said with a gentle smile.

Noel was mostly conscious by now, and so Hope stood with the cold mug in his hands, experiencing a strange sense of déjà vu as he glanced out of the large window. _I suppose I was off by a few hours. Four hundred years asleep will do that to a person._

Shaking his head to relieve himself of his thoughts, he turned back to his companions. "When you've had your fill of resting, come by my headquarters."

He smiled.

"After all, you're guests of the Academy."

* * *

><p>The walk gave him shivers. Not due to the temperature, but because, leading a three-quarters-conscious Noel through the busy streets of Academia stirred a buried memory in Hope. One of ducked heads and empty alleys, the roar of military machinery and the shouts of confused people – a memory of Palumpolum – and of fear.<p>

But he shoved the thought away before it could claim him like so many others had been doing as of late, the only evidence of its passage being a slight falter in the scientist's steps.

He glanced back to make sure the hunter was still following him; Noel had been mostly asleep for the part in which directions had been discussed, and Alyssa wisely suggested that they just show the weary time-travelers to their rooms instead of forcing them out into the crowded city to fend for themselves. The hunter did not meet his eyes; he was looking around the city with much curiosity, and it was only a moment later that he glanced forward and saw Hope looking at him inquisitively.

"Never seen this many people so close together before," he said by way of explanation. "We..." Noel paused to clear his throat – "didn't get much time to take in the scenery in the… other Academia."

The silver-haired man made a noise of understanding.

"Bringing so many humans together in such a small place introduces an entirely different set of problems than those you might be familiar with in a hunter-gatherer society," he said, before descending into a full-fledged lecture on the pros and cons of cities, weaving his way through alleys in New Town, Noel trailing behind.

The hunter was barely even listening, interested less in what Hope was saying and more in the tone of his voice and the way he moved. There was a certain set to the older man's shoulders that made it obvious he was talking about something he enjoyed studying, and he could see a hand or two as Hope emphatically gestured, apparently ignoring the fact that his audience was behind him.

It was a strange thought, but he was enamored by Hope's interest – if that was the way to put it. When he was caught up in explaining something that piqued his interest, his intellect and personality veritably shone.

A faint heat rose to Noel's face as he considered that, though he wasn't certain of its source.

The Director abruptly fell silent after mentioning something about aquifers. He glanced back at Noel somewhat apologetically. "I spent a while researching cities and civilizations while studying the ruins of Paddra. Sometimes I get a little ahead of myself –"

Hope cut himself off with a sudden question.

"Noel?"

"Ah – huh?" He had been poised to respond generically, having not minded the other man waxing educational much at all, but was caught off-guard by the inquiry. Belatedly, he realized Hope had stopped walking, and he paused as well to avoid bumping into him.

"You're blushing," the silver-haired man pointed out.

"Uh –" The brunette coughed slightly, as if to hide it. Or his embarrassment. It could really be a toss-up, at this point. "Sorry. Just... tired," he lied.

"Oh." Hope blinked once. "I see."

A beat.

"It's a first-floor flat," the Director said, turning and striding off to the left. They had come to a halt just five steps from the building. Noel followed him, jogging just slightly to keep up with his guide's pace. "There's some food in the pantry if you'd like, to tide you over while I figure out what to do about dinner tonight."

He continued explaining as he unlocked the door, handing the key card to Noel after the sensor had flashed green and he had stepped inside.

"There's a shower, as well. You can borrow some of my clothes for the time being; yours will be taken care of tonight, and I'll see to it that they get repaired if need be."

"Don't worry about it," Noel cut in to respond at the first opportunity. "There's not much damage, and what there is, I can –"

The brunette paused, mid-step and mid-speech, turning to Hope to address him fully.

"Actually," he said haltingly, "that is – if you can find some…"

Hope waited patiently for the hunter to collect his thoughts.

"…would I be able to get a needle and thread somewhere?" The request was made with a slight tinge of hesitance and – curiously enough – embarrassment. "A smaller needle, and some kind of strong thread. The strongest you've got, actually. Doesn't have to be of any particular quality, just durable."

The silver-haired man considered the question seriously. A moment later, he had an answer.

"I'm sure that can be arranged," he responded.

"Thanks, Hope," the hunter said sincerely. He hesitated a moment, as if thinking about adding something else, but apparently thought better of it as he instead turned and ventured into the apartment, looking around curiously.

Hope took the half-invitation to follow him, letting the automatic door slide closed and seal itself as he walked away from the entrance.

Noel was standing where the synthetic solid flooring of the kitchen met and turned into the sterile carpeting, his bare toes curling over the almost-invisible seam between the two.

Stepping lightly over his discarded sandals, the Director slipped past him and towards the shades that hung darkly, keeping the light and the noise and the bustle of the city at bay. With a wide gesture, he threw them open, and was slightly amused at the audible almost-a-gasp that escaped Noel's lips behind him.

The building dropped out into open space. Hidden from the street leading to the front door by a row of dwellings, the view of this section of New Town was unexpected; there was nothing for a hundred yards up, down, or out from the windows, only a street several floors below that hung a right and meandered away from them. The pale ants below could pass for people, and the toy cars and trees were vividly detailed and lifelike.

He didn't notice Noel creeping up next to him until the hunter swayed.

Hope grasped the younger man's shoulder, looking at him with an expression of concern. The hunter's pallid complexion was several shades lighter than his usual wild tan, and his voice was weak.

"I...think I need to sit down."

The adviser managed to support Noel for long enough to lead him to the bed in the other room; at that point, the brunette pitched forward, landing spread-eagled on the mattress with a little bounce. He let out a low moan of pleasure as he stretched out on the cushioned surface, and Hope chuckled, ignoring the shiver that ran down his spine at Noel's utterance.

"Enjoying yourself?"

The inarticulate grunt of vague bliss was answer enough.

Hope laughed again, and turned for the door. "We'll see you soon."

"Nngh," Noel grumbled in response. Though the accompanying "Hope, wait," was quiet enough and late enough for the silver-haired man to almost miss it, he halted and turned back at the call, hesitating at the door but striding forward confidently after the brief moment.

The brunette had maneuvered himself into a slightly more comfortable position, laying half on his side and with his arms wrapped around the spare pillow, facing away from the door. Nonetheless, he seemed to know that Hope had returned as he'd asked, because he cleared his throat softly.

"Will you -" he tried to say, but was cut off by a yawn. "Will you...stay? For a minute?"

Hope stirred slightly at the question. He had never seen his friend like this...what should he call it? It wasn't quite peaceful.

"It's...weird without Serah."

_Lonely?_ That might be it.

Hope's expression softened. "Of course," he responded, oddly honored by the occurrence. It was obvious that the hunter tried his best to hide his weaknesses when he was at his prime, so to willingly display his softer side, even a bit, was a show of trust that wasn't lost on Hope.

_"Operation Nora...didn't work out."_

_The evening sun is blocked out by a head of blush pink locks dyed orange, and his arms hang awkwardly to his sides as Lightning wraps her arms around him and pulls him tight to her. She is the older sister he never had, and the embrace - while unprecedented - helps him feel as if he might be able to glue his insides together into a recognizable shape after all._

_"You'll be okay. I'll keep you safe."_

_Her words make him feel less broken._

_"I..." he says, trying to respond appropriately. "Me too." He does not know how to deal with Lightning being affectionate at all, much less to him, much _less _when he is still trying to sort out his mixed feelings._

_"I mean... I'll try to watch out for you, too."_

He left his boots next to the bed, padding to the side opposite Noel in his socks. The dull olive of his trousers clashed oddly with Noel's blue pants as he sat next to him on the large bed, half-crossing his legs and leaning back against the headboard.

From this angle he could see Noel's face; the way the space around his eyes tightened even as the rest of his face relaxed. The youthful cast to his countenance, even though any trace of baby fat had long been worn away by hardship.

The way his blue eyes made his breath catch in his throat when they blinked open and caught him staring.

Even as he flushed and hurriedly glanced away, he heard Noel shift beside him. There was a sudden warmth seeping through the glove on his hand - the hunter had taken one in both of his, pulling his attention back to his drowsy companion.

"Hope... thanks," the brunette said quietly, and with remarkable clarity, considering he was barely conscious. His gaze was sharp; pointed.

There was a sudden lurch in Hope's stomach, and he had to glance away once more to collect his thoughts, feeling as if his internal organs were trying to rearrange themselves. He could not explain what had elicited the feeling, nor why he had felt as if Noel had been thanking him for more than just the bed.

Though, when he turned back to the younger man, poised to respond with his mouth half-open, he hesitated a moment, one silver arch delicately raised.

_Huh._

A light snore, reminiscent of a kitten's purr, escaped the hunter.

Having to restrain an inappropriate bubble of laughter at the sound, Hope slid off the opposite side of the bed once he had ascertained that Noel was not going to be waking up again this time. Gently, he pried his hand out of the grip of the sleeping man, and did not notice whatsoever the soft smile that graced the unknowing brunette's face at the action.

Of course not. Not at all.

Treading lightly as he made his way over to the door, clad in boots once again, Hope Estheim paused for just a second at the doorway; he glanced back, suddenly not keen on returning to the Academy, but shook the hesitation off as somewhat understandable worry as to whether or not Noel would be able to fend for himself for a few hours. After all, Serah was the one who knew her way around a modern kitchen.

Reassuring himself that Noel was a bright young man and that he was being paranoid, Hope ignored the faint urging that he ought to stay behind, straightening his tie in the mirror on the wall and slipping soundlessly out the front door.

* * *

><p>"Come again?"<p>

Noel tugged at the white sleeves somewhat irritably. The cuffs extended down over his wrists and were distracting as they brushed against the sides of his hands, and the feather-light feeling kept distracting him from the conversation.

Well, one couldn't properly call it a conversation. In fact, it was more of a one-sided argument.

"Look," Serah growled, her round face and petite figure belying the fury she was capable of riling up whenever it suited her. "I promise, if you just call Hope and tell him Serah and Noel are here to see him, we can get this all straightened out."

"I'm sorry," the male secretary droned, clearly not apologetic. He looked down his nose disapprovingly, first at Noel, then at Serah, his gaze sliding apathetically over Mog, who was bobbing in the air behind the Farron woman's shoulder, looking around in what was probably awe and interest at the lavish foyer of the Academy building.

And it was awe-inspiring. All shiny metal and glass, the vaulted ceiling of the chamber caught and threw back the voices of the people in the room (who were largely children, Noel noted with surprise). The silver quality of the alloy was familiar in a way that made him blink a few times, until the secretary's flat response drew his attention back.

"The Lead Adviser is a busy man, and he won't be taking unannounced visitors," he said in his droll voice, shuffling the papers in front of him in order to appear as if he had something better to do than be insufferable. "Especially not...rabble like yourselves."

Serah frowned. "But-"

"Make an appointment," the man said snidely. "Perhaps in a year or two, you might have the fortune to catch a glimpse of the esteemed Mr. Estheim across a large room that's crowded with people. Until then..."

Noel stepped closer, next to Serah. He was tired of sitting on the sidelines, even if he didn't know exactly what was going on. In light of the fact that Serah had asked him to let her handle it, he glanced at her apologetically, to which she responded with a gentle smile.

"All right," he growled, looking down at the man who stared back up at him impassively, unflinching. "I'll put it in simple terms for you. She," he jerked his head back towards his companion for emphasis, "has known Hope for longer than the Academy's even existed. In fact, she met 'the esteemed Mr. Estheim' when he was just a kid - before the Fall."

Those three words especially seemed to cause the color to drain out of the blond-haired man's face, the hunter noted with a tiny bit of vindictive pleasure.

"In addition, her sister and her fiancé were both l'Cie right along with him." Bending down to the flustered-looking clerk's level, his voice dropped dangerously low. "And _so was she_. So you see, I think she's a hell of a lot more important than you are. Letting us through is probably the wisest option."

He knew Serah was fidgeting, but he couldn't stand being held up by nothing more than a stubborn idiot. If it had been a series of battles, he wouldn't have minded as much (though he still would have, mind), but this distraction was wholly unnecessary. He wanted to talk to Hope, _dammit_, and he'd be a behemoth's uncle before some guy who spent half of his time sitting in front of a desk with nothing to do would keep _him _from doing exactly what he wanted.

And she out of everyone ought to understand the importance of giving a good tongue-lashing where and when it was due.

"Do you," the pallid man asked, reaching up to card a hand through his straw-colored locks, "have an appointment?"

Grumbling, Noel abruptly straightened up. He knew he didn't cut quite as impressive of an image without his normal clothes and without a weapon, but he was pretty good with his bare hands if he wanted to be. But before he could do something decidedly regrettable...

"Serah Farron?" a voice resounded. "Noel Kreiss?"

The young woman jerked up from the desk, almost clipping Mog with her shoulder. The moogle let out a startled "kupo!" as he regained his balance. "Yes!" she responded, hunting for the source of the voice. "Yes, that's us!"

Standing in front of the large metal door at the head of the room was a young man with a set of binders in his arms. His untidy brown hair spilled out from under his beret, giving him a haphazard appearance, as if he had woken rather suddenly.

"D-Director Belhart, s-sir," the man behind the desk stuttered, rising to his feet as the young man hurried over. He adjusted his tie nervously, clearing his throat.

"Whatever seems to be the problem, Freeman?" Director Belhart inquired briskly, dropping the binders on the desk. The sound made Freeman flinch backwards, something that Noel noted silently. "Mr. Estheim requested that these two -"

Mog piping up loudly and peeking out from behind Serah's head caused Belhart to falter just a hair, but he recovered with extreme poise. "Ah, three, that is, be shown to his office the moment they arrived. And if I'm not mistaken, that was around fifteen minutes ago, wasn't it?"

"Yes, sir, but -"

"He said we needed to make an appointment," Noel cut in, having been able to stifle the majority of his irritation. "And he called us... uh, rabble, was it?" Folding his arms, ignoring the way the fabric dragged on them, he looked pointedly at the current Director and spectacularly failed to notice the way Freeman's face steadily began to resemble a miniflan. "Hope told us to drop by when we were ready. Didn't realize it would be a problem."

Belhart's mouth had fallen open slightly as Noel spoke, and he flushed marginally as well, his ice-blue eyes venomous when he glanced at Freeman. "Well, that's just silliness," he said faintly.

"We didn't mean to cause a commotion," Serah put in hurriedly, having been toying with the hem of her shirt and hoping Noel wouldn't do something drastic. Yes, the man was an idiot, and yes, they wanted to talk to Hope sooner rather than later, but he couldn't really be blamed for doing his job...albeit quite zealously. "Could you just take us to see Hope, please?"

Mog nodded, as if to punctuate her statement. "It's kind of important, kupo," he added, waving his clock-staff to and fro as he flew over closer to Director Belhart, peering at him curiously. He prodded the man's beret with the tool. "Hello there, kupo!"

Far from Freeman's cold, slightly fearful response, Mr. Belhart broke out into a wide smile at Mog's antics, raising a hand to poke the moogle in his round stomach. He squeaked indignantly and made to bonk the young man on the head, but he dodged with a laugh.

Serah found herself grinning at the sight, and Noel couldn't resist a small chuckle at Mog's excitement.

Freeman, however, grumbled to himself and went back to his work with a sigh. The noise seemed to bring the Academy official back to his senses, and he picked up his binders again, nodding to the pair (and a half) of time travelers. "If you'll follow me, then?"

* * *

><p>"Oh, you definitely have the complexion for yellow!"<p>

Alyssa veritably chirped this, tugging experimentally at the hem of the summery shirt Serah had picked from the stash of designer clothes tucked away in the scientist's closet. "It complements your hair a lot better than I thought it would, actually."

"You think so?" Serah was somewhat nervous, unsure as to how to act as Alyssa's impromptu dress-up doll. She shifted her weight. "I wasn't sure - I kind of closed my eyes and picked -"

She quailed as the young scientist rounded on her.

Pausing just as she was about to unleash what was sure to be a strong remark in the vein of "that's not how outfits work, you know!", she pressed two fingers to her cheek and sighed. "Well," she said, looking over Serah's outfit critically again. "I guess there's only one thing that can be done."

The bubblegum-haired woman glanced to the side, looking to Hope or Noel for assistance. But neither of the men were paying attention; at the opposite end of the room, they sat around a small portable computer, discussing something avidly, as far as she could tell.

Alyssa had dragged her over to ask her a question or two about their endeavors in the Augusta Tower, wanting to cross-reference some data with files they had on record. It was difficult to tiptoe around the subject of their deaths in that timeline, as many of her questions had revolved around the importance of human Academy employees.

That was, until the blonde woman had interrupted herself by clucking her tongue, pacing around her friend slowly as she observed her choice of borrowed clothes.

"I'll have to take you shopping!" she declared, stepping backward and nodding, the pen tucked behind her ear bobbing somewhat where it stuck out from her curly hair.

Serah blinked in surprise, round bluish eyes obscured by the flutter of long eyelashes.

There was a long moment.

"O-okay," she stuttered, feeling as if she was agreeing to something she would regret; however, Alyssa's excitability was infectious. The bag of gil tucked into the pocket of her white capri pants was heftier than it needed to be, after all, even considering that she and Noel ought to buy some weapon upgrades, if they could find Chocolina amidst the millions of people who lived and worked in the humongous city.

"Then it's decided!" Alyssa declared. "As soon as we get the two of you briefed, we can - oh, no, I hope they didn't start without us!" Her cheeks puffed out like a blowfish. "Directooor! You didn't start the briefing yet, did you?!"

"The...what?" Serah cocked her head to the side, the curls of her side-ponytail spilling over her shoulder. _Did we miss something important?_

"You'll see," the assistant told her cryptically, seizing her by the wrist and dragging her over to Hope's desk, leaving her notebook and tidy notes piled on the floor.

The late evening light appeared reddish-gold as it shone through the large window behind the two men, gilding their faces even as it cast the rest of them in shadow. Noel's legs were crossed at the ankles and propped up on the desk, his arms folded behind his head - lounging, as he peered at the laptop on Hope's lap, who was sitting two feet away, angled so the brunette and he could both see the backlit display.

Noel was saying something as the two women drew close, and Hope was laughing slightly as Serah and Alyssa each slid into a folding chair across from them.

"Welcome back, Serah, Alyssa," the silver-haired man said, unable to remove a gentle upturn to his lips even as he tried to be serious. "Noel and I were just discussing legends," he elaborated, upon noting his assistant's raised eyebrow. "Apparently there's an old wives' tale that the number of sons a man will have depends on how many times his wife can best him in combat."

Serah glanced at Noel in surprise and amusement, asking "really?" at the same moment that Alyssa waved her hand dismissively and said "fascinating, Director, but we really ought to get started, don't you think?"

Three pairs of eyes snapped to her, two incredulous and one challenging, but at the flicker of playfulness in Alyssa Zaidelle's visage, Serah hid a smile behind her hand.

Hope's lips came together in a thin line. "So eager," he deadpanned with fake reproach, but there was no animosity; in fact, the exchange reminded Serah of one thing in particular.

She turned to face Noel, and pantomimed sliding a wedding band onto her own finger when she was sure neither of the scientists was looking. She was unsure as to whether or not he would understand the joke, as she realized she knew absolutely nothing about Farseer marriage traditions, but she was relieved when he laughed quietly.

Therefore, she failed to see the flash of some unreadable expression cross his face for a shadow of an instant.

Hope cleared his throat. "Alyssa does have a point," he concurred, the very image of serious as he ignored his assistant's teasing. Setting the laptop down on the desk in favor of a rather thick manila folder, he moved his office chair closer to the table, opening the file and spreading out some of the top files. "We have a few things to talk about.

"The reason we picked this time period in particular as our destination is because of a certain structure that the two of you may have seen today, if you looked up." He would have twisted in his chair to point it out through the window, but his office was, unfortunately, on the wrong side of the Academy headquarters. As a substitute, he pulled out of the back of the folder a large photograph; the resolution left much to be desired, but depicted on the page was an amorphous edifice suspended in a sea of blue.

Noel took his sandals off of the desk and rearranged his posture to join the conversation, leaning slightly forward. He peered at the image even as Serah examined it as well.

"That," Alyssa said, "is the Thirteenth Ark."

"The Thirteenth Ark?" Serah parroted, looking up to glance between Hope and his assistant. _Where have I heard the word Ark before...?_

"We don't know much about it at all, except that it looks like it's endemic to this time period, for some reason. And also..."

"The structure has also attained sustained levitation." Hope finished Alyssa's thought. "It's our only lead in solving the main problem that we face in the development of the new Cocoon."

His gaze flicked swiftly to Noel. "The visions of the future that the Oracle Drive has provided us with have been instrumental in helping us to determine the correct path forward. More than that, your work in resolving paradoxes has made the route to the future we strive for that much more clear." Folding his hands in his lap, Hope regarded Noel and Serah both. "We really can't thank either of you enough."

Serah blushed slightly, looking almost sheepish. However, Noel was the one to respond, careful not to knock Mog off-balance as he turned his head. "We're in this together, Hope. You know that."

The scientist's eyes dropped into his lap for a moment. His hair obscured his face to the two young women, but Noel caught a glimpse of his lips moving; the words were clearly not meant for him, but the hunter could not help but strain to deduce his mutterings.

He failed, glancing away quickly in order to hide the fact that he had been staring; Mog squeaked and tumbled off Noel's head, cutting Hope's thought off as he angrily brandished his staff and whacked Noel upside the head.

The blow didn't sting as much as he expected it to, but he still recoiled with a bark of laughter, belatedly raising an arm to defend himself; pouting, instead of beating up the hunter further, the fluffy creature fluttered over to Serah, dropping into her lap with a muttered "Noel's a meanie, kupo..."

The four humans were all smiling as Hope cleared his throat, shifting in his seat as if restless. "At this stage in our research," he began - and Noel felt the mood grow quickly somber, yet oddly expectant - "there is good news, and there is bad news."

"Good news first?" Noel suggested, casting a look to Serah for confirmation. She nodded in response, exactly at the same time that Hope and Alyssa shared a look.

The blonde woman took over from there. "We managed to pinpoint the exact source of the Thirteenth Ark's levitation - it's a quantitative material, an ore cluster that we dubbed -"

"- the Graviton Core," Hope picked up the thread of conversation. "That's the good news. The Thirteenth Ark contains one of these such ore clusters; from our calculations, the new Cocoon will require five to compensate for the difference in mass, if we calculate based on the population of the old Cocoon just before the Fall. However, there is one catch. The bad news -"

"- is that we can't find any of these Graviton Cores on our own, no matter where we look." Alyssa frowned. "That's where you two come in. We found -"

"- the locations of seven of these ore clusters, the majority of which are in different time periods. We hardly have a right to ask you to do this for us, but - what?" Hope blinked, having just witnessed Noel and Serah exchanging a look and beginning to laugh. "Is there something wrong?"

"No!" Serah responded hurriedly. "No, no, it's just..."

"I think what she means to say," Noel began, still laughing a bit, "is that it's hard to keep up with you two when you do that thing."

Serah nodded, trying to stifle the sudden bout of hiccups that had come about from the small incident.

Hope glanced between the two of them with confusion, then at Alyssa, trading a light shrug with his assistant.

"What thing?"

Two pairs of raised eyebrows answered his question, one brown and one rose. Hope's blank stare convinced Noel of his apparent blindness, once he had turned his chrysoprase eyes on the younger man, and he leaned backwards in his chair.

"You and Alyssa were finishing each other's thoughts faster than we could think," he said dryly. He couldn't fathom that Hope had simply not noticed that he and his assistant had been explaining the same point in tandem. _That takes a special brand of teamwork._

A beat later, Hope flushed a bright scarlet, which Noel barely glimpsed in the millisecond before his face dropped into his hands; he massaged his temples as Alyssa and Serah exchanged another laugh.

"What can I say?" Alyssa queried rhetorically, addressing Noel as she too rested her elbow on the table, cupping her cheek with one hand as she raised an eyebrow at him. "I guess the Director and I are on the same wavelength."

Her tone was of amusement, on the surface; however, below, Noel caught an eddy of something that sounded like... possessiveness.

Like a challenge.

He went cold all the way to his toes when the observation clicked. It felt as if she had looked right through him and picked the exact words that would set him on edge, make him grit his teeth.

_She knows._

In that moment, he knew it to be true. It was no accident that she had said what she had, in that tone.

Of course she and Hope were on the same wavelength. The statement was truer and sharper than the blade of any sword, and it pained him, in a way that was difficult to express - even in his own thoughts.

The understanding he and the silver-haired man to his right shared was superfluous at best, while still remaining a connection; yet this did not satisfy the hunter. There was a strange desire, a yearning even, to get to know Hope better; to be close to him in that way.

It was a desire that he could barely admit to himself even now.

But Alyssa seemed to sense that deep-held longing in him - and knew that she had exactly what he wanted. She had the guts to tell him as much, in such a veiled manner that no one but the two of them would understand.

Clever, he had to admit.

But the vague admiration of her tact did not stifle the rise of resentment (and possessiveness) of his own. He knew that he was incredibly outmatched by her in the brains department - a trait which Hope evidently valued - but if it came down to a contest, so be it.

He didn't quite stop to realize the implications of his own thoughts - he would try to sort out the strange jumble of feelings later, when he wasn't so agitated.

Now, however - now Noel stared Alyssa down, answering the challenging gleam in her eye with one of his own.

Hope remained blissfully oblivious to the entire exchange, looking up at Serah wryly once he had regained control of himself. "I suppose we've bounced ideas off of each other a few too many times," he said, hearing her giggle and glancing at his assistant (only to follow her line of sight to Noel who (for some reason unknown to Hope) looked as if he was about to snarl and bite her head off, from the way his lip was twitching).

He reshuffled his papers, signaling a return to the discussion. Alyssa and Noel glanced away from each other, the former holding herself with an air of confidence and the latter almost palpably irritated. The Director paid them little attention as he pulled out the largest packet, sliding it across the desk towards Serah. "Alyssa compiled a comprehensive list of all of the Graviton Cores we've managed to locate throughout the timeline." He looked sheepish. "I don't know how to ask this, but..."

"We'll do it." Noel's answer surprised everyone, including himself; seeing Hope's look of hesitance (_why?_ Noel wondered), he hurriedly backpedaled, explaining. "It sounds like the job for us. No one else can do what we do. And remember what I said, Hope? We're in this together. Right, Serah?" She nodded in agreement as asked. "So...we'll do it."

Hope's smile was small, but no less radiant for that. And, belatedly noting that he hadn't split it between himself and Serah as per usual, but rather reserved the entirety for Noel, the hunter felt something warm coil in his stomach.

He couldn't resist a surreptitious glance at Alyssa; she sniffed and looked away, leaving him feeling even more pleased.

* * *

><p>"Director Belhart had nothing but the highest of praises for this restaurant."<p>

Serah was paging through the menu curiously, giggling at the afterthought of the tagline - what was it, that _it will tickle your intellect as well as your palate?_ The phrase went something like that, she thought, but what struck her funny bone was not the concept of this restaurant, sitting at the peak of the Academy building like a gourmet crown jewel, but Hope's delivery of the following joke.

He had the most impressive deadpan she had ever seen. The statement wasn't altogether funny - ("I'm not certain tickling is the desired sensation," he had said flatly) - just very unexpected, especially from her normally stoic friend.

_Goodness,_ Serah thought to herself, surprised. _Was I that starved of human contact, besides Noel?_

As she regained herself, staring intensely at the pages of entrées as if they would yield to her some great secret, she glimpsed out of the corner of her eye a flash of movement as the ex-Director glanced at her.

Serah looked up, meeting his eyes. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but the flash of mischievous amusement that was almost-not-_quite_ masked by seriousness certainly wasn't it. The look made her go hot and cold, filled her with a want to laugh and cry and - she knew exactly whom he'd learned that deadpan from.

And she yelled at herself internally before she could so much as take another step down the line of that thought process. Even the scant glimpse of her sister was as painful as it was relieving, without the agonizing thoughts of whys and what ifs that always seemed to accompany those reminders of Lightning, like moths to a flame.

The other two occupants of the table tucked away in the corner were completely unaware of Serah's emotional turmoil, much to her pleasure. However, it was easy to determine why that was so. It didn't take a soothsayer to sense the tension between Noel and Alyssa, the edginess that seemed thick enough to cut with a knife, roast on a seasoned range and be served on a silver platter out to the waiting companions.

She always came up with outlandish food metaphors when she was hungry.

Shaking her head and leaving the matter for later speculation, she returned to attempting to decipher the portfolio of pages in her hands. The incredibly messy handwriting perplexed her - and why would a restaurant run by the Academy have handwritten menus anyway? And more importantly, how were Alyssa and Hope not having any problems at all? The woman across from her was pondering the wine list with the same intensity with which one would tackle a mathematical equation (which might be more accurate than she had thought, as she caught a vague mutter that sounded an awful lot like "Merlot and Gorgonopsid? Mmm, not the best choice...").

Noel may have been pretending to read the items' descriptions, but she knew with absolute certainty that he was looking only at the pictures - from the way his eyes moved when she glanced at him, in flicks and stares and not lines, it was easy to see.

A few moments later, the younger Farron sighed loudly and set her menu down. "I give up!" she declared. "Hope, what's with this terrible handwriting? I feel like I'm deciphering my students' writing assignments through dirty glasses!" She answered his questioning look with an accusing finger brandished at a line in the folder. "Is that an E or a G? I can't even tell anymore. If this is a prank," she growled, folding her arms, "it is _so_ not funny."

Taken aback, Hope gaped at her for a moment, much in the manner of a fish. Alyssa hid a snicker behind one half-gloved hand.

Then the man did something strange, indeed, as Serah huffed at him. He leaned back into the padding of the booth and laughed quietly at himself, saying something along the lines of "I should have known" before he asked his assistant for a scrap of paper and a pen.

On the loose sheet, the pink-haired young woman (and her brunette companion, who leaned forward to watch what was going on) watched Hope scribe two lines of twenty-six glyphs each. The top line Serah recognized as the Cocoonian alphabet that she knew, and had known since she was a child, all tidy lines and dots (and a lot easier to read than whatever mess was in that stupid menu). Beneath it, the second line of symbols looked like chocobo scratch in comparison, the lines meandering and of varying thickness, and rarely bearing any similarity to the Cocoonian glyphs he had written first.

He started talking as his borrowed pen scratched across the paper, rendering each small image almost perfectly. "These are the alphabets of the civilizations that existed on Cocoon and Gran Pulse, respectively." The man glanced up at Serah as he set the utensil down. "Serah, do you remember when you met Vanille on the beach in Bodhum?"

Taken aback, it was a second before she nodded. _How does he know about that?_ "Yeah, I do. Why do you ask?"

"The two of you were able to communicate because you both spoke the same oral language," he said. At Serah's confused look, he elaborated. "The language of Gran Pulse is the same as the language of Cocoon, apart from a few slight differences in pronunciation. That is..."

Hope broke eye contact with Serah in order to return to his sheet of paper, drawing a line connecting each Cocoonian letter to a corresponding Pulsian letter. "The only difference between the two is which symbol represents what letter."

"Okay," Noel said, startling both the Cocoon natives. (Alyssa was still frowning between the menu and the drinks list, as if waiting for a solution to her predicament to present itself.) "But what does that have to do with this weird menu? It doesn't look like either of those – well," he amended himself, "it actually looks like..."

"Both of them." It clicked for Serah as if she had been looking at the puzzle from the wrong angle, as she compared the menu to the example scripts._ It's like the two of them fused!_

The ex-Director looked pleased. "Precisely," he said. "In the first months and years following the Fall, the Academy was a research foundation – one that focused the majority of its attentions on the ruins and writings of Gran Pulse. It became pivotal that every researcher know the Pulsian alphabet for his research. Some, instead of writing in two different languages and constantly translating their notes back and forth, worked out a style that combined both alphabets and was vaguely recognizable from either end. When the institution later fused with the government, the intermediate alphabet was introduced to the public; it gained ground and, well," he gestured vaguely at the menus, "here we are."

Able to use the "cipher" to begin to understand the words she was looking at, Serah ignored the following conversation that ensued between Noel and Hope comparing a third alphabet (which Noel scribed with the borrowed pen), and attacked the list with renewed vigor. As the language barrier fell away, she was drawn into the strange but delicious-sounding foods, meals that made NORA's house special look like a slab of burnt meat in comparison.

However, her excitement was short-lived. When the waitress finally came around to ask if they were ready (after having been sent away the first time), and the perfect order rolled off of Serah's tongue, her face fell when the young woman with curly red hair shifted slightly... and tapped her nails against the small handheld computer that recorded their orders... and worried her lower lip between white teeth.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice steady even as she quivered a bit like a string drawn too tight. Her eyes flicked to Hope for a shadow of an instant, as if afraid of disappointment. "It looks like we're all out of Shaolong Gui for the evening, Miss Farron."

"Oh," Serah said simply, staring back down at her menu. Nothing else had jumped out at her as much as the soufflé had.

"May I recommend the -" The woman's voice petered out as Alyssa talked over her, saving the day by shouldering the plans.

She listed off entrée after entrée, and the waitress struggled to keep up, to the point where Hope glanced over at Alyssa pointedly. She looked back at him and flushed brightly, apparently not realizing she had been hell-bent on ordering half the menu a moment ago.

"Ah," she groaned, "I'm sorry. I suppose just the first four, then."

The waitress' face stayed perfectly schooled as she crossed out eight items. "Anything else for your party tonight, Miss Zaidelle?"

"One more thing." She confirmed the statement with a nod and the flash of a sharp smile. "A round of the strongest liquor you've got, please."

Her wink to the waitress went almost unseen as three pairs of eyes snapped abruptly to hers. Alyssa fielded the complaints expertly, the majority of them being from Hope; Serah protested weakly, but was quickly overridden by the scientists' heated discussion.

"Director," Alyssa sighed, "it's just one night! You can loosen up and celebrate!"

His frown was met with her disapproving look as she folded her arms, wagging a finger at him. The assistant looked to Serah and Noel for help, though they only glanced at each other; seeing that she wasn't going to be getting any assistance from her friends with the obdurate man, she focused the full intensity of her glare at him. "Director Hope, it isn't every day that the four of us meet again in 400 AF. You take all of your work very seriously, but if you don't take a break every now and then, you'll drive yourself nuts!"

He was poised to respond, but her pent-up tirade continued. "Everyone will understand if you take a few hours to yourself. Today's the best day you'll get to relax. Serah and Noel are back and we're on our way to getting the Graviton Cores! There's no better time than now to live a little."

She grabbed his arm. "Come on, Director. Trust me. Just one night. Please?"

Hope stared at Alyssa, weighing the pros and cons in his head. His thoughts led him to looking blankly into Alyssa's eyes, who, unknowingly to him, smiled charmingly back.

Serah sighed in a manner that gave Noel the impression that Snow was on her mind. The hunter himself... looking down at his lap, he began to recite in his mind a short scrap of a story that some Farseers had used to drive off worries and distraction before a hunt, to focus his emotions before they got the better of him. (Perhaps when he had crushed them down to a manageable intensity, he could take a while and figure out why he was feeling what he was, and what those feelings were anyway. Emotions were not his strong suit, but it frightened and irritated Noel to know he didn't understand his mind as perfectly as he did his body.)

His knuckles whitened as his fists clenched.

_There was a man outside of Tueline,_

_who thought himself quite good at fooling_

_His heart and also those of women_

_Until he found himself one morning_

_Beset by love's own arrow'd longing._

Noel sighed to himself. _There was a man outside of Tueline..._

"Just this once." Hope's quiet and hesitant agreement drew Noel from his calming activities, and Serah from her own thoughts. The beam that spread across Alyssa's face was dazzling.

The hunter closed his eyes, failing to notice the tightness in Hope's face in answer to Alyssa's glee. The fragment of doggerel failed to calm him down; something like hurt and anger rose in him, choking him. _What a fool I am._

He was on his feet before he could comprehend what he was doing, but relinquished his control to his fight-or-flight survival instincts. He turned and strode off, sidling around tables, ignoring Serah's confused cry of "Noel-?", and with as much dignity as he could muster, he fled from the situation. From the infuriating assistant, and her equally but wonderfully frustrating superior.

But most of all, from himself, and his own convoluted feelings.

* * *

><p>He stared into the mirror at himself, examining a hairline scar that extended from the corner of his left nostril to his left ear. It felt nice to be able to breathe again; the atmosphere in that booth had been suffocating, even though he had seemed to be the only one who felt it.<p>

The footsteps might have startled him, if he hadn't been expecting them. Still, he ignored Hope as his impromptu companion leaned against the far wall. The silver-haired man didn't try to meet Noel's eyes in the large mirror either, folding his arms and focusing his gaze on the tiles beneath his feet.

"Serah's worried," he said.

The hunter didn't respond, deliberately not turning around to face Hope even though he flinched just a bit at the statement. (He hated that she cared so much about him, sometimes. He had vowed to do his damnedest to keep her safe - it was kind of hard to do that if she had eight people's worth of concern for him. If he hurt her by protecting her, well, then he had to be pretty damn careful.)

He noticed a flicker of movement; Hope was looking at himself in the mirror too. "She said she'd never seen you storm off like that," he continued, though judging from his tone it seemed he expected Noel not to respond.

The hunter was surprised, too. "Yeah, well," he found himself muttering.

"Noel," Hope spoke, stepping up next to his friend at the counter, abandoning all pretenses. "What's going on between you and Alyssa?" His eyebrows furrowed, as Noel saw in the glass. "I don't know what's gotten into her - either of you, honestly."

Noel sighed and dropped his eyes to his hands on the granite countertop. "It's hard to explain."

"Try me."

He shook his head. "I would if I knew myself." That was an honest statement. If he had words to describe the situation, he would say them. As it was, he could only hope that Hope would be able to put two and two together in a way that he couldn't seem to.

And maybe explain it to him. That would be nice.

Hope hummed in what Noel assumed was thought, and only then did the hunter turn to face his friend. "Perhaps we ought to ask Alyssa what her issue is."

"No," Noel said, sharply enough that Hope's eyebrows jumped up. "I just -" he tried to start, but struggled with finding the right words. "Don't worry about it, Hope," he concluded faintly. "We're just not seeing eye-to-eye on something. That's all."

Actually, he thought he might have an inkling of an idea as to what was really at the base of all of this. And if he was right, then his subconscious had probably been trying its level best to get his conscious attention for a while. Because things like that did not just _creep up on people._

Hope looked at him searchingly, his pale face unreadable as the incandescent light of the bathroom spilled over his skin. Chrysoprase eyes roved over the hunter, trying to deduce some way in which to help his friend; his expression was flat and schooled, but Noel saw it when he looked up – the confusion (and was that hurt?) that was all but swallowing him whole. It was all there in his eyes… he saw this when their gazes locked.

A full-body shiver shook Noel's system as every single one of the pieces fell into place. The force of it left his mouth dry. It was infuriating how mockingly simple the entire situation was to understand when one looked at it correctly.

"I think I need to go," he blurted. The adrenaline that always seemed to be on tap now flooded through him in response to the realization and his need for some time to sort things out. (His body was out of whack enough as it was, what with all of the constant fighting. Traveling through time probably had not helped at all, especially considering he couldn't remember whether or not Caius had ever lectured him on how it dragged on one's body – he highly doubted he had – and, to top it all off, he still had yet to catch up on all of his missed sleep. It stood to reason that one little shock would topple a series of dominoes just waiting to fall, he thought bitterly.)

Nevertheless, the way Hope almost jolted at the statement made Noel feel extremely guilty. _I really hope he doesn't think he offended me or anything. He was just trying to help. Not his fault that I…_

He was almost gone, but the broken sigh that escaped his friend when the brunette disappeared from sight caused him to pause around the corner. He knew that listening in was really the wrong thing to do, but he could not stifle his curiosity, especially when he could begin to hear Hope's voice.

"Light…" he heard the Director sigh to himself. "I don't understand what's going on." There was a beat of pause. "Noel and Alyssa are both hiding something from me. And on top of that…"

Noel strained to hear what Hope said next, but he couldn't – not from this far away.

"I feel like – like I'm losing my mind," the man continued, and Noel thought he could tell from the odd quality of his voice that he seemed to be holding in a sob. "I wish you were here to smack some sense into me, Light. You gave me the best advice I could ever ask for, but – I really don't know how to handle this.

"Please… come home safe and sound. We need you."

His heart heavy with the words he wasn't meant to hear, Noel slipped quietly out the door.

* * *

><p>There was a light knock on the wall.<p>

"Noel?" Hope tried, sliding his boots off near the door. The hallway was dark, but he saw a light in what might be the living room. There was no response to his call, but he wasn't surprised; after today he figured Noel would be passed out on the couch, or something.

He stepped over Noel's sandals, sprawled in what was quickly becoming their usual spot, as he entered the living room quietly so as not to disturb the brunette.

Except he was met with a sight quite unexpected.

Noel's bright blue eyes were sharp like metal, cleaving through Hope as they flicked to him. "Hope," he responded, with only scarce inflection. His attention returned to the shirt in his lap. "How'd it go?"

The scientist stood still for a moment, taking in the scene of Noel lounging on the couch and fixing up his shirt with the needle and thread Hope had given him. He swallowed and moved to sit down on the other end of the piece of furniture. "Fine," he said dismissively.

He had left soon after Noel, feeling too uncomfortable to sit through dinner proper. He had no idea what Alyssa would drag Serah into next; didn't really have a desire to be a part of it either.

The hunter grunted noncommittally, but looked up at the silver-haired man in surprise when the latter rose to his feet again. The older man in question disappeared into the kitchen, banging around a few cupboards and the refrigerator for a moment or three before he returned with a bottle and two glasses.

In response to his curiosity, as he set them down on the coffee table near to Noel's feet, the corner of his mouth quirked up.

"She's right," he said. "I don't relax enough. And it's only one night, after all. But -" He looked up from what he was doing, drawing Noel's attention. His expression was hesitantly pleading.

The brunette caught on immediately. "Sure, why not. After all," he said with a smirk, "I'd be honored to have a drink or two with the esteemed Mr. Estheim himself!"

Hope's lips pursed in a severe way, but he still laughed quietly. "I heard about that," he said, as he poured two glasses of what might be rum. "Director Belhart was a nervous wreck."

"Wasn't his fault," the brunette declared, making another stitch. "Freeman's an idiot, but that can't be helped either."

Hope hummed noncommittally. He remembered working with someone very similar to this Freeman on site in the Massif all those years ago, a female soldier who would sooner spit in her superior's face than disobey what her job duties entailed, even if instructed otherwise. There were always a few who held their job descriptions as the gospel truth, he figured.

_"If it hadn't been for Serah, I'd have been out there, too. Hunting l'Cie. They'd have been nothing but targets to me."_

Hope paused. He was sure Lightning had never said anything of the like to him. So why was he remembering that?

"Hope," Noel said suddenly, looking at him oddly.

The silver-haired man stirred and looked up, realizing he had been lost in thought. "Yes?"

"You spaced out at the bottle. Aren't you gonna sit down?"

"Ah - yes." Shaking the unusual thought off, he circled the table and took a seat a few feet from Noel on the small couch. He tossed a glance at the project sprawled over the brunette's thighs, intrigued in the way that only a scientist could be. _I wonder what gender roles consisted of in his time._

"Hope," Noel said again. "What's wrong?"

"Hmm?"

"You keep zoning." Tying off the line of stitches and setting the fabric to the side, he leaned forward to grab the glasses. He handed one of them to Hope, making doubly sure that the older man had a firm grip on the glass - just in case. "Let's talk about something."

Seeing that Hope was staring at the liquor now, Noel clicked their glasses together himself, ignoring the startled glance upward that the sound elicited. "Cheers," he announced, hoping against hope that the alcohol might help the Director concentrate. _Wildest dreams, Noel. Doesn't work that way._

He was still concerned, though.

His friend's face at the taste of what he was very sure, by now, was rum almost caused Noel to laugh. Almost. He himself had never had anything of the like - the Farseers weren't big on alcohol - but Lebreau (was that her name?) sure had a good time lecturing him on all the multicolored bottles behind the NORA house counter. He probably would have preferred something a little more bitter, but he countered that thought with the assurance that he was pretty much pretending to know what he was talking about.

He paused. _That sentence didn't make any sense._ Shrugging it off, he nearly jumped when Hope was the first one to break the relative silence.

"What would you like to talk about?" He wasn't conceding the decision to Noel out of politeness, it seemed; he was honestly curious. At that, a generic response without commitment fell stone-dead before he could say it, and instead he actually considered a conversational topic.

"How about..." he drawled slowly, "...the Fall?"

Hope held his gaze for only two beats before he looked away. "I'm sure Serah told you everything," he said, avoiding the topic.

"Some stuff here and there. Relevant things, things she heard from Snow." His eyes bored into Hope. "I don't know anything about your side of it, though."

"Snow had all of it right."

Noel leaned forward and grasped Hope by the wrist, forcing the silver-haired man to look at him. "I know it's a lot to ask." He swallowed. "I'll tell you about my childhood. Everything I remember. We'll trade."

"Noel -" He knew he was trying to make Hope feel better about sharing, but the hunter had mostly succeeded in backing him into a corner. On the one hand, he had never related the story to anyone before. At least, not in full. Everyone that mattered knew what had happened without needing to be told (besides his father, who knew the first half anyway). Others...he let them be content with the history books he had contributed to, however minor. The information contained was as accurate as anyone would need; the Academy, under his father and Rygdea, had seen to that.

On the other...he was immensely curious as to Noel's past. Not only for the informational knowledge, but also because...well, he really wanted to know things about Noel. Understand him. He knew Alyssa like he knew himself, because they were so similar, and while he hadn't been particularly close to Serah, they were also of a like breed - had been tied by the commonality of their former Focus, and by Lightning and Snow. But there was nothing to connect Hope and Noel besides their goal (and Serah herself, as well); yet this did not satisfy the scientist. There was a strange desire, a yearning even, to get to know Noel better; to be close to him in that way.

It was a desire that he could barely admit to himself even now.

Looking into those pleading blue eyes was the last straw to orchestrate his downfall. However, he was still pleased by the sudden series of surprised blinks as he conceded with an "All right".

"The story's a long one," he warned at the outset. "I suggest you get comfortable." As such, he didn't protest when Noel refilled his glass as well as his own, knowing the intoxicant might help him get past some of the more difficult chapters.

When the hunter had rearranged himself comfortably a few feet away, Hope cleared his throat. "I should start by describing Cocoon. Many of our hurdles and much of the fault of our mental states can be traced back to the environment and culture that we had been raised in.

"It was relatively small compared to Gran Pulse, but to the people, it was perfect. When you looked up, you saw the lights of other cities dotting the night sky. We wanted for very little; our every need was provided-for by the fal'Cie, our benefactors - and our dictators.

"We didn't know it then, but we, every single one of us, were pawns in the fal'Cie plan. Sheep to a shepherd. They took good care of us, and we remained diligently obedient, never questioning their decisions, never doubting the tales of the hell of Pulse. To us, they were the guardians that protected us from the barbarians below.

"This tale starts with the awakening of two such 'barbarians', and the subsequent branding of a young woman you call a friend. But you asked for my story, so here it is.

"I was born to two loving parents, raised in a well-off family, and attended a typical public school. My father was distant and occupied with work; my mother," for the first time, Hope's neutral lecture-voice broke, and he took a moment to swallow a swig of rum before continuing, "stayed at home to raise me. I think she might have published a book when I was younger. I don't remember all that accurately anymore.

"I grew to resent my father for not being around more. At that time, I didn't understand that it was possible to show your love for your family by spending your time ensuring they were well-fed and well-clothed. I thought he was grasping at straws for reasons to be away from me, and I did the same to him.

"There was a vacation to Bodhum," he noted Noel's stir of recognition, "New Bodhum's namesake and, yes, the hometown of Lightning, Serah, and Snow. It was also the place where Vanille and Fang awoke, inside the Pulse Vestige. I didn't know that then.

"My father was called into work. Mom and I went without him. She dragged me shopping, and to the beach, and eventually the annual fireworks celebration." His smile was nostalgic, though slightly bitter. "We were all there for those fireworks. Vanille. Fang. Lightning. Sazh. Serah and Snow. And myself.

"The following day was when the Purge began.

"We were visitors. We should have been exempt. But they threw us onto the train. I still don't know if I would wish for it to have been any different. It's strange." He frowned. "I can't imagine what would have happened if we hadn't been on that train.

"Snow and Team NORA crashed the train. Rounded us up and armed us against the soldiers, kept most of us alive through bravado and luck. He asked for volunteers."

Noel sensed his need before the scientist even realized it; he slid closer, as if to remind his friend that he was here, and the events of which he speaking were not.

"Mom went with him. He also gave the crazy girl a gun. That," he said, "was Vanille.

"She dragged me with her. It was because I followed her that I saw my mother - protecting Snow. Then -" Again, his voice failed him. (Noel looked at him with concern, but he ignored it.)

"They fell," he finally managed to whisper, his voice deceptively calm.

"I saw it. All of it. I was in shock; Vanille slapped me, brought me back to my wits. I probably would have been dead if not for her, even if I thought she was insane at first. I latched onto her; her crazy was less crazy than my life had become. The government that protected me and provided for me was now trying to kill me, was telling everyone else that we were just being moved to Pulse. And on top of that, Mom just -"

He accepted the soothing hand on his calf.

"I blamed Snow. Thought that if not for him, she might still be around. We chased him, Vanille and I, even as he chased Serah in the Vestige; even as Sazh chased Light, who chased Serah as well. It was all very parallel." The smile was wan. "We all ended up inside. Serah crystallized in front of us. The Vestige started coming down on top of us. And they decided to... attack the fal'Cie. Attack it! As if that would make things better!" He knew he must sound hysterical, but he couldn't help it; the emotions he had forced down at that time had never been properly released until now. Hope was only thankful that Noel seemed to understand; he didn't move except for the almost imperceptible nod that he gave as aquamarine eyes gazed at gentle azure.

_You can do it._

"Serah had been a l'Cie. Sazh's son Dajh had been as well. And Vanille was already one at the time, unbeknownst to us. I was the only one that didn't know the truth. That l'Cie were just unfortunate people, not evil monsters. Therefore - I was the most scared. I tried to run. But I was branded with the rest."

Lake Bresha was easier for him to explain; besides being scared out of his mind at his new abilities, it was more of the same - resenting each and every one of them for putting him in this mess. Even Vanille. And especially Snow. The Vile Peaks were also easy; leaving Sazh and Vanille, being left for dead in return, Odin, and finally being of some use to Lightning, his idol. (When he told Noel of his admiration for Light, the hunter snorted. Hope couldn't figure out why.) The Gapra Whitewood took only four sentences, being the lowest point of the tale.

"Palumpolum was a fortress," he said softly. "It was unreal seeing the city I grew up in filled with so many people who wanted me dead. We sneaked in through the underground nutriculture - food production," he added for the brunette's benefit, "plant, and saw Carbuncle on the way. As we passed it, Light told me that Operation Nora was over."

The calming hand had by now migrated to his knee, which it squeezed gently at the news. He was rather thankful that Noel had refrained from commenting; the nonverbal support was exactly what he needed.

"I accused her of abandoning me. She promised that she wouldn't, and I held her to that. But soon after, when we reached the other end and returned topside...

"They knew we were coming. There must have been hundreds of soldiers just waiting for us to stumble into their ambush. The two of us against a battalion? We were done for." He cleared his throat, taking another swig of liquor as he gave his voice a momentary rest. The pause stretched out a few moments longer.

"She told me to start running. _'You survive.' _And maybe I would have, if not for her promise. I couldn't believe that she would be ready to lay her life on the line for me; to abandon me to keep me alive." He shook his head. "I wouldn't have made it anyway.

"Snow busted in at just the right time, with Fang in tow. He took out a few soldiers, summoned Shiva, his Eidolon; the two of them provided enough distraction that Light grabbed me and ran, loosing as many shots as she could to clear us a way out. He was a hero." His lip quirked ironically. "If he had been a second late, we'd have been executed.

"Light all but threw me at him. I guess she knew the idiot well enough to know that he'd keep me safe. At the time, though, it was a really bad decision." Hope frowned. "I was so full of anger. I was a ticking time bomb, and putting me close to Snow only aggravated that. Fang tagged along with Light to watch her back, so it was just the two of us.

"We scared the living daylights out of a few citizens to get them to run away. We knew if they had stuck around, the army would have killed all of them in order to get a shot at us. Snow threatened them – I knew what he was doing, and why, but it still hit me the wrong way. I don't know if I thought there might have been a better way; maybe I was just in a dark enough place that I didn't care about them anymore.

"At least, that's what I thought. They came after us with pitchforks. I have a vivid memory of a little girl," he paused to clear his throat, feeling it go raspy with overuse, "hiding in an alley with a Carbuncle doll. She threw it at me and ran. Snow brought down an overhanging sign to blockade us from the citizens, but I couldn't just leave. I picked up the doll and left it for her on top of the sign."

He thought Noel's expression might have softened, but he couldn't be sure, as he took the natural break to refill their glasses. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he was thankful for the buzz of the alcohol. It gave him something else to concentrate upon, besides his tale.

When he had settled back down, he continued, talking about their flight over the rooftops of Palumpolum, on his way home. At a certain point, after fending off the Ushumgal Subjugator with Snow, he found himself unable to go on; the words died in his throat, and he made a few false starts.

The hand that wrapped around his took him by surprise, but while just a few hours ago he would have jerked away at the sudden contact, now he relaxed into it, almost but not quite welcoming the gesture. It was a lot harder than he had thought it would be, to relive these experiences; Noel's fingers twining with his helped him to breathe again.

And if he was a mite flushed, then it was obviously the alcohol's fault. Indisputably.

"I grilled him," he began finally. "On what he wanted. What he felt because of the Purge, because of us being l'Cie - because of people whose lives I accused him of ruining. What he said just fueled my anger. _'Keep fighting and surviving until I find the answers I need.'_

"I told him there weren't any answers. That he was running from what he deserved.

"Somehow I knocked him off the ledge. A spell, maybe. Instead of helping him up, I pulled Light's knife." Noel's hand squeezed, as if he was surprised by the statement. Hope wondered idly if Snow had ever told Serah about that. "A battleship was circling overhead, watching us, but I didn't care. I spat Mom's name at him. Was vindicated when he recognized it.

"The battleship fired as I readied the knife. The explosions behind me threw off my balance, and I fell clean off the roof. And Snow dropped right after me. Always the hero, he caught me and broke my fall. Even after I had just tried to kill him." His breath hitched.

"I would have done it, too. Noel, I wanted to kill Snow. I almost -" His voice fully broke that time. Hope took a few seconds to fight back the telltale heat behind his eyes that bespoke of tears. He was twenty-seven years old, for Etro's sake. Grown men did not cry telling stories.

There was a clink as Noel set his glass down on the table, slinging his free arm around the silver-haired man's shoulders without warning. He was taken aback at how natural the gesture felt; being inexorably pulled flush to the hunter's side would have agitated him had it been anyone else. The man caused his irritation to evaporate like shallow water in the sun.

"But you didn't," he said, the first thing he had uttered in a long while - so quietly Hope was almost certain he had misheard, despite their proximity.

"No," he agreed with a sigh. "I didn't."

The rest of the tale went by surprisingly quickly, once he had passed the most difficult part. (Notably, Noel stared at him for a while after the part about falling out of the airship and later fighting his Eidolon. Eventually he just shook his head and chuckled, amused to no end by some private joke he didn't share with Hope.) Drawing near the end of his story, the hunter's mouth fell further and further open; for the sake of brevity, the silver-haired man glossed over the period of time in which he _might_ have been a Cie'th. The hunter looked at him critically nonetheless, as if silently wondering "how in the hells..?"

"Waking up from crystal stasis was a lot like walking straight out of bed without having to get up. That is, it was...strange, to say the least." He laughed gently. "We saw Cocoon hanging above us, supported by a crystal pillar. Sazh, Snow, and I - and if what Serah remembers is true, Light was there as well." His good humor dimmed. "I remember looking down and seeing her knife by my foot - giving it to Serah after Snow had put her down, and watching her face fall." He thought that if he pushed hard enough at the edges of that memory, though, he might remember the feeling of someone's arms around his shoulder. But he wasn't certain if it was just wishful thinking. "Sazh and Snow had Dajh and Serah back. Someone from the Cavalry found my father for me, as well.

"We had all lost more than we could replace, but we gained a future out of it. We fought our Focus... and we won."

There was a long silence as the steady stream of words that had occupied the air for at least two hours rang to nothing. Only the twin sounds of breathing broke the quietude.

Noel swore suddenly, quietly; however, the sound was sharp enough that Hope started.

"The old stories don't do the truth any justice at all," the hunter said disapprovingly. "Some of them even left out the Cocoon-born l'Cie entirely."

At Hope's laugh, the brunette looked down at him. "What?"

"It makes sense," the silver-haired man elaborated. "Fang and Vanille were the ones that really mattered, in the end. Lightning, too. The rest of us were...the supporting cast, in a sense." He chuckled again, but the action was more cathartic than out of any sort of humor.

"That's not true, Hope," Noel argued, apparently intent on making his case. "You kept the morale up. If not for you, none of you would have made it to Oerba, right? You're just as important as they were."

"Mm," the ex-l'Cie hummed noncommittally.

The break stretched peacefully between them. Hope was aware that he and Noel were too close to be entirely decent - they were practically cuddling - but he found himself to be enjoying it all the same, and thus he ignored his doubts.

"I wasn't really anything special."

The hunter was beginning his story.

"I only remember bits and pieces, because the timeline hasn't been certain for a while. But I'll tell you what I do remember.

"My parents died three years after I was born. That year, sickness was rampant; a lot of our most able-bodied hunters died. There weren't many who wanted to or could take care of me. My grandmother taught me a lot, but she couldn't hunt. So, I was taken in.

"By Caius.

"He took me on as his apprentice, taught me the ways of the Guardian. Yeul was born again later that year. She had fallen victim to the plague as well... I suppose that technically makes her the last human born.

"She was Yeul, though. Which to me meant something more than human, I guess.

"We were practically siblings, we were that close. And as we grew up, more and more people died around us. Death was the only constant. And after long..." Noel swallowed.

"It was just us.

"My memory gets fuzzy here. I don't remember how old I was when my grandmother died, or when Caius left, or when Yeul -"

Hope returned the favor by squeezing the hunter's hand gently. The brunette squeezed back, but it was still a few seconds before he could continue.

"However it happened, at some point, I was alone. Everyone was gone; they left their hopes and dreams on my shoulders. That weight," he sighed, "was too much.

"I wandered, looking for Valhalla. Trusted the tales Caius told me of the timeline and the Unseen Realm. I prayed to Etro for some way to fix things. I didn't care if I ceased to exist; I couldn't let humanity end like that.

"I walked until I couldn't walk anymore. Then I was brought to Valhalla; I fell through the air, and Lightning caught me, riding Bahamut."

Hope stirred at that._ Fang's Bahamut? _It couldn't have been. _But still._

Noel mistook the movement as being elicited by Lightning's name. "She was probably the fiercest woman I'd ever met," he said softly. "She told me about Serah, gave me Mog, and sent me off before Caius could intervene.

"They were matched so well it was scary. Their conflict tore Valhalla apart; I leaped for a Gate only a second before a falling piece of shrapnel squashed me flat." His laugh was just as lifeless as the image. "Then I ended up in New Bodhum. And... I guess you know the story from there, huh."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence again, each lost in his own thoughts. It was a minute or two before Hope found himself needing to shift, the leg tucked beneath him erupting into pins and needles.

"Thank you," they both said in unison. Surprised, their gazes snapped to each other's, perplexed aquamarine and amused azure.

They stared at each other for a beat, before Hope flushed slightly and looked away first with a little nervous laugh. "Thank you for trusting me with that, Noel."

"You had faith in me first," the brunette countered. Their hands were still clasped, and Noel's fingers rubbing against his caused him to glance up again. "So...thanks, Hope."

His intense gaze trapped the silver-haired man, captured his attention firmly and pinned him down. Moments stretched into tens of seconds, neither of them able to break the tension that exploded to life between them.

Hope swallowed as Noel leaned forward; his eyes slipped closed.

Strong fingers carded through his soft locks - Noel ruffled his hair with a smirk, an amused glint to his eyes. "Time for bed, I think, Director," he said. "It's two in the morning and you're spacing out again."

The scientist stared at Noel blankly, waiting for his mind to catch up. _What just happened?_

At the hunter's questioning look, he nodded bonelessly. His stomach struggled to untangle itself and flip itself right side up once again - he uttered something along the lines of a vague agreement, stumbling through a haze of alcohol and reeling thoughts as he retreated to his room.

The door closed under his hand, and he leaned against it, fiddling with his tie as a nervous tic.

His breaths came in short gasps, as if he were drowning; feeling an episode of some kind coming on, he forced it down, deeper and darker than he had forced anything since he was fourteen. (The storytelling made him feel lighter, as if he had let some of those buried feelings out of himself – and in a way, he had.) With each forcefully lengthened breath he took, he calmed himself, forcing the confusion back.

He was really – he had really been expecting Noel to kiss him, he realized. And he didn't _mind _it; in fact, he had _wanted _it.

He slid down the door until he was on the floor, leaning his head back with a sigh.

Well. It was about time he faced the facts, the ones he had been half ignoring and half failing to recognize. It was time to analyze the situation objectively (if that was even possible, which he doubted).

In his own professional experience, which counted to a resounding _nothing _in matters like this, it seemed – given all the evidence – that he had a _condition._

And by _condition, _what he really meant was that – oh, _Etro _- he was incredibly and intensely attracted to Noel Kreiss.

Then again, that one conclusion led to an avalanche of other realizations. Suddenly, in a form, it was clear as to what had been going on between Noel and Alyssa – and a few of his own erratic responses made sense in context, as well. For example, the tension that was still thrumming through him seemed to be one of those such responses.

Determining the cause was only one step to attempting to deduce a possible plan of action, however. Now that he _understood _his feelings, more or less, he needed to decide what he wanted to _do _about them.

He had continued pondering as he dressed for bed, and he now stared up at the ceiling in the dark, knowing he was laying where Noel had been sleeping just hours ago. His thoughts whirled around his head, spitting at sleep whenever it tried to claim him.

Hope resigned himself to a long night – and not just a long night, but a long period of wondering what it was that he wanted. He hadn't known what he had hoped to do with his future, besides fix what of the past he could – save Vanille and Fang and Light and his mother. If he even still wanted to do that, knowing what he did now. Did he wish for a happy future in which everyone he had ever cared about was safe and smiling? Of course. But… perhaps that was no longer possible, at least not in the way he wanted. Perhaps saving his mother would bend the timeline further beyond repair… the same to Vanille, Fang, and Lightning.

But then, wouldn't any future involving Noel also do irreparable damage to the timeline? He was a boy from a distant, impossible, desolate future – one that was a very real outcome, if they didn't devote all of their efforts and more to keeping this world safe.

He knew it was selfish, but just for a moment, he wished fervently that fate would allow him the chance to be happy. And perhaps he hoped things would look better in the morning light. That perhaps there was some solution that he was overlooking. Who could say?

His last thought before succumbing to a much-needed rest was one of question; he wondered if he was the only one of the two of them who felt this way.

And soon, he felt himself begin to regret that question, as his dreams swelled with half-formed phantasms and fears born of loss, regret, fear, guilt, and something that might have been the pain of an unrequited affection; he wouldn't know, as the notions faded in the dawn as if shadows before a candle.


	5. Chapter 5

_hey readers!_

_i'm here, i'm alive!_

_here's chapter five for all of you, and it's another long one. however! i decided to splice it and finish the ending as an additional chapter 6, so the ending you see here is not the end of the fic. i repeat, it is not the end of the fic. i promise!_

_parts of this chapter were beta edited for content and comprehension by SpiritWave/tumblr user feels-everywere. she is so lovely and spectacular, i cannot even...! (ElTangoDeRoxanne/tumblr user tangotheconqueror also gets an honorable mention for being the biggest cheerleader of this fic, because there have been a few times when i would have set it on fire if not for her liking every single excerpt i posted on tumblr while in the process. thank you so much!)_

_also an important author's note:_

_i decided to include an optional track for moodsetting in this chapter, which is totally and completely up to you to engage in, but i find it adds some texture to the scene in which it is included. **so! **ffnet is really terrible with links, but when you see "x." between two line breaks, please queue up the track "**hope_pfner3**", also known as **track 6 **off of the xiii ost **plus **album for the following scene. if you search it up on youtube, it will pop up quite easily._

_as always, please enjoy!_

* * *

><p><em>aeonis infinitus<em>

_chapter 5_

* * *

><p>"Mnnnghhhhh -"<p>

He awoke with a garbled moan, throwing an arm over his eyes to shield them from the bright sunlight that streaked through the window and over the end of the couch.

Some kind of clattering sound resounded from the kitchen, clashing with the pops and cracks of his bones returning to their places as Noel stretched, swinging his legs off the side of his impromptu bed.

It was a moment before he stood, though. Noel was presently distracted by the fading impression of a dream he thought he might have had; his concentration on the thought was in vain, as the wisps eluded his grasp before he could remember the subject. As it disappeared, he felt a pang of loss. Somehow it had seemed to elicit a feeling of warmth in him, and he was loath to lose that.

Though, then again, since when had he been reliant on dreams to give him comfort, anyway?

Shrugging the thought off, he popped his shoulder back into alignment with another stretch. Then he looked up and to his left, towards the kitchen area of the apartment.

He caught a glimpse of a head of silver hair before Hope bent down behind the breakfast bar, the thump of a cabinet door closing making it obvious he was looking for something or other. Noel heard a muffled curse as the scientist reappeared, bustling around the kitchen, tugging cupboard doors open one after the other and irritably grumbling, until he found what he was looking for with an "aha!" of satisfaction.

"Hope," the hunter said slowly, voice rasping roughly as a result of alcohol and sleep, "what are you doing?"

At first, the silver-haired man appeared not to have heard him, as he gave no response; instead, the sound of something pouring and a scent that was familiar to Noel in a way he couldn't pinpoint wafted over the breakfast bar.

"Good morning, Noel," the scientist said as he did something that created a _click_, his voice hale and hearty even though he had been drinking the night before as well. He turned and stepped out from the kitchen with something held in each of his hands - which happened to be bare, he noted unconsciously.

As he padded silently, catlike across the carpet, the hunter got a better look at the clothes Hope was wearing, which presumably were also the clothes he had worn to bed. In comparison to his dreadfully bulky Academy uniform, he was almost scantily clad in a well-fitting white tee that had three large yellow stripes running diagonally across the upper half, and a pair of gray slacks that had probably slipped while he was banging around the kitchen unit and now hung loosely on Hope's hips, low enough that a tiny strip of pale skin was visible above the waistband.

Which Noel definitely hadn't noticed. That was silly. (But damn if the Director didn't look amazing when he was just a little disheveled.)

He glanced slightly away as he moved over, attempting to hide the fact that he had been staring; however, Hope definitely hadn't noticed, focused as he had been on keeping the two mugs of black coffee from spilling over onto the floor. Taking the proffered seat on the couch after Noel moved the throw blanket he had scrounged up in the middle of the night, Hope set the two drinks down on the coffee table, near where the rum had sat last night.

Noel must have slept through Hope clearing up, which both made him content in an odd way and also somewhat nervous. That he hadn't sensed the other man sneaking around him when he was asleep either meant that he unconsciously trusted him enough not to do anything, or that he was getting very, very rusty.

He hoped it was the former.

"Medium roast," Hope explained, gesturing to the coffee. The phrase didn't make sense to Noel, so he "elaborated" further. "Light enough for the caffeine, dark enough for the taste to feel rather like a kick in the face in the morning." He chuckled quite gently at his own not-joke. "I figured you might be a little hungover, so I made you a mug."

While he wasn't exactly keen on the prospect of trying this coffee stuff, Noel smiled back at Hope, grateful for the gesture. "Thanks," he said sincerely, picking up a mug to take a swig.

"Noel, it's -" Hope started to say, but was cut off by the hunter's startled cry.

"Ah!" he yelped, setting down the mug as quickly as he could without spilling it and covering his mouth vainly with his free hand.

"- Still pretty hot," the scientist finished lamely.

"You could have warned me," the brunette whined past his scalded tongue, unsure how to nurse his wound. His head felt less full of cotton, but that was more out of shock than any effect of the coffee.

Rather than respond verbally, the silver-haired man just looked at him flatly. A few moments passed before he started to laugh, simply shaking his head at his friend.

A realization dawned on Noel, and he grasped onto it with both hands both because he wanted a way out of this conversation and because it honestly interested him. His tongue still hurt like hell, but he pushed the pain away. "You seem comfortable today."

The mirth still remained in his turquoise eyes as he looked straight at the hunter, instead of coughing and looking away in embarrassment as Noel half-expected him to. "Why wouldn't I be?" he asked, and from the wideness of his eyes, the way his blatant curiosity made him look ten years younger, it was easy to tell he didn't understand the part-statement, part-inquiry. "After last night, I'd consider you and I to be good friends, Noel."

"Yeah, but -" He got that, but he struggled to find a way to put his thoughts into words. "I guess, I don't know. I'm used to seeing you more... reserved, sort of."

Hope did look away at that, his eyes dropping to his lap; he masked the almost-flinch by leaning forward, in the guise of fetching his coffee. "There might be some truth in that," he said vaguely, but did not elaborate, instead raising his mug to his lips.

He thought to himself as he studied Noel, whose attentions had turned to retrying his own mug (though progress was slow as it was evident he no longer trusted the coffee), that the younger man looked rather striking in white. He was still wearing the dress shirt he had attended dinner in the night before, though it was incredibly wrinkled, and the navy tie and jacket that had gone with (the latter being about an inch and a half too short, the result of their having been Hope's own clothes that he had borrowed) seemed to be missing, and a few buttons had come undone near his neck, exposing a triangle of the hunter's tanned and muscled chest, and - he was definitely _NOT _continuing that line of thought, not at all, lest he wanted to end up with an unplanned result, and he was smarter than that, _damn it._

"Hope?" Noel inquired, apparently having noticed the discomfort on Hope's face. "You look like you swallowed a lemon." He took a long sip of his coffee, and his lip twitched only slightly, which either meant that he liked it...or he couldn't taste anything anymore.

The scientist's face colored two shades closer to rose.

"Ah," he stalled, fumbling for something to say. "I was just... wondering how long we're going to keep Serah and Alyssa waiting." Nice save. "It's getting rather late. If you and Serah want to get a start on the Cores today, perhaps we should get going."

Though he had accomplished his goal in deflecting attention from his lapse, he still felt a huge pang of guilt at the way the blood drained from the hunter's face. It wasn't a particularly kind blow to use the time travelers' self-appointed task as a distraction. He must have been quite desperate.

"Hyperbole, Noel," he said apologetically. "It's only nine thirty. I didn't mean to cause you stress."

Instead of the righteous glare he had been expecting, the way Noel grinned at him as if proud of him knocked Hope off-balance. Silver eyebrows disappeared into his hairline as he regarded the smile.

"Jokes," Noel said, raising a finger for each sentence fragment he listed. "Being talkative. Exaggeration. Not wearing that uniform of yours - wow, Hope, if I didn't know better I'd say you were _normal!"_

"You -" Hope growled and shoved the other man. Hard. Thankfully he had not been holding his cup; he was spared from having to clean up that mess, though the indignant cry that escaped Noel between peals of laughter as he sprawled lengthwise on the couch was both vindicating and irritating.

The hunter lay there for a moment before propping himself up on one arm. "See, I knew there was a human trapped in there somewhere."

The phrase, while innocuous at first glance, hit him like a fist in the gut. Perhaps the remark would have slid right off him, if he hadn't relived the story just last night. However, as it was, he barely glimpsed Noel's face beginning to fall as he realized what he had said before he was halfway back to his room. At the door he paused and, without turning, declared "get yourself ready, we're leaving soon." The door _clicked_ shut behind him.

Noel saw the instant recoil as the accidental double entendre of his words sank in, and he could feel himself turning white. _Oh no, _he barely had time to think before Hope vanished.

Knowing he had only seconds before the Director closed himself off completely again, it still took Noel a much-needed moment to rouse himself from that guilt_. You're an idiot_, he cursed himself internally, repeating the thought like a mantra as he all but leaped off the couch. _Idiot, idiot, idiot_.

He barged in without knocking, barely registering that Hope was not in fact wearing a shirt before nearly tackling his friend from behind, wrapping fabric-covered arms around Hope's bare middle without considering the action. "Hope," he murmured, the only word he could say properly before degenerating into garbled apologies, feeling the way the scientist stayed tense in his arms. "I'm sorry," he repeated into silver hair, "I'm sorry, it came out wrong, Hope, I'm sorry, I -"

A great sigh escaped the older man in question, the gentle thump of the shirt he had been holding in his hand hitting the floor being lost underneath the sound. He relaxed into Noel's impromptu embrace, leaning slightly back as he allowed the other man to support some of his weight.

"Noel," he said wearily, "it's okay." He understood the remark was all in good fun, and that he had meant well; the comment itself had happened to stir up some ugly feelings laying just beneath the surface because of the night before, and he reacted in the moment. He ought to be the one apologizing - he said as much to Noel.

But of course he would argue for the blame. It was Noel, after all. "No," he protested firmly. "I wasn't thinking. I said it. My fault."

It suddenly occurred to Hope that he was participating in a real-life rendition of one of those cliché movie scenes in which two people each argued that something was their own fault. The thought struck him as amusing, for some reason, and he began to chuckle lowly.

Noel stirred at that. "What's so funny?" he asked simply, and Hope could tell that the brunette's head had cocked slightly to the side, judging from the movement of his own silver hair - and that was an odd sensation, he decided.

"Nothing important." He brushed the thought off, and instead gained awareness of something he had overlooked in the moment.

"Noel, can I ask a favor?"

"Yeah, what?"

"Can you let me finish changing?" Hope's voice stayed carefully flat. Yes, he found himself unexpectedly enjoying the contact, but it was wrong of him to count it as anything more than what it was - a concerned friend with rather physical tendencies.

Still, he missed Noel's arms, as the hunter stumbled back with a stammer. "Oh," he blurted. "Uh - yeah. Yeah. I'll be in the...other room." As he hurried out, obviously embarrassed for having intruded on Hope's space like that, he pulled the door shut behind him with a click.

He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, his shoulders sagging slightly, glancing at the uniform spread out on his tidy bed - the first real motion since Noel had left.

The next few days were going to be quite _long_ with Noel as a housemate, especially considering last night's revelation.

Of that, he was certain.

* * *

><p>"Noel, I think it's time to get going."<p>

A small pause ensued, before the hunter dipped his head, in agreement with his companion. "Yeah, you're right. We gotta get started now, or we never will."

They had decided on a game plan, of sorts; with the intention of finding all seven Cores that they had on file on the borrowed PDA in Serah's pouch, they would try to find at least two a day, maybe three, with the intention of spending only four days more in Academia if they could help it (and if the nascent gate on the east side of the main thoroughfare cooperated). For today, they had decided on the Bresha Ruins, anticipating an easy find, and then hunting down the Gate that led to Yaschas Massif, 100 AF.

When asked if she would rather return to New Bodhum that day, Serah glanced down, lacing her fingers together as she avoided their gazes. "I think... I need a little time to prepare for that," she said hesitantly, and was not questioned.

Hope and Alyssa had taken some time out of their days and accompanied them back to the gate they had arrived by. The scene was almost the same as it had been the day before (and had it really been that short of a time?), except for the clouds that wisped across the sun every now and then, casting shadows over the city.

The skyscrapers hid a cauldron of gray and shifting masses to the southwest, though. A storm was brewing.

"This isn't goodbye, right?" Alyssa queried worriedly, clasping her hands together before her thighs.

"We'll be back before you know it," Serah reassured her, and Noel nodded.

"It doesn't matter how long we're gone for," he reminded the scientists, "because only a few hours will pass here. We'll be back in time for dinner."

He held out his hand, the thick twine lacing his fingers and arm standing out from his skin like raised, dark veins. Hope took the proffered grasp with his own gloved hand.

"We'll hold you to that," the scientist said, seriously but with confidence.

Glancing to the side to notice Alyssa and Serah exchanging words, Hope leaned forward, closer to Noel, gripping the other man's shoulder with his free hand. "Please don't do anything stupid, Noel," he pleaded. "Come home safe."

"Count on it," the brunette promised, settling his own left hand on Hope's forearm.

They broke away from each other after just a few seconds, each feeling as if something had passed between them that they couldn't put words to. But there was no time to consider the impression. They had run out of time to dawdle. So, without further ado, the two time travelers stepped toward the gate, Mog fluttering behind them, and the scientists took a step back each.

"Good luck!" the blond assistant called suddenly, waving in farewell. Startled, Serah looked back, before returning the gesture. However, Noel didn't budge an iota, facing the activating gate with squared shoulders. Hope probably would have been a little insulted at that, if he didn't think he had an idea as to what was going through the hunter's mind at that moment.

_They're all panting like mad, the adrenaline dump after having taken out a battalion or so of soldiers (and an airship, because that's just how their luck runs right now) being prolific enough that even Fang and Lightning sag a little at the shoulders. None of them know who Fang's mysterious friend is, but she seems to trust him, and that's enough._

_Snow ended up okay, more or less, and this relieves Hope in a way that is difficult to describe. He follows the rest of his friends – no, family – to the waiting airship, taking purposeful strides away from the remnants of his childhood that lay, smoking, behind him._

_Except he cannot bring himself to leave without at least acknowledging what he is leaving behind. But at the same time, he knows that if he sees his father again - meets his eyes, sees his face - he will not be able to leave this place. (He can no longer call it his home. There is nothing left here for him.)_

_To compromise, he takes a moment to turn just so, pausing in his movements. He allows one eye to regard the destruction._

_"Take care, Dad."_

He knew those mixed emotions. Knew the difficulty of leaving. And he thought he might have seen some of that in the hunter, in the set of his shoulders and the tension in his hands.

Lines and waves of paradox energy whipped forth from the Gate, though the passing hyper-accelerated force barely stirred a hair on any of their heads. (He was not surprised by the realization. The laws of _should _did not apply to paradox.) However, it did seem to do something else - the two time travelers appeared to light up from the inside out, shining like beacons as they were drawn back into the void surrounding the timeline.

The spectacle passed too quickly and too slowly at the same time. As the Gate gradually dimmed, Hope and Alyssa shared a look that could not have been put to words.

There was something mysterious and impressive about the event itself that was lost when simply explaining or describing it, he thought. He had not considered seeing Serah and Noel off in the Massif all those years ago; his head had been spinning too full of possibilities and explanations and hopes for him to properly realize that they had left, that they were gone. Yet he had seen them again in that time - every few hours, they turned up and asked him questions about this or that, looking more tired and haggard each time. (He also remembered the intensity with which Noel looked at him sometimes - but could not name the emotion.)

Or...did he? Did they? The memories had a fuzzy quality to them, and wavered in and out of focus like a bad camera.

The truth hit him with startling clarity. The timeline was in flux. He was not remembering incorrectly - his memories themselves were uncertain._ What a strange sensation_.

A moment passed. Something shifted, and Hope blinked.

He had just been thinking intently on something, but whatever it had been eluded him.

Casting one last glance at the dormant Gate, he turned and followed Alyssa back to the headquarters of the Academy, feeling uneasy for a reason that could not be ascertained.

* * *

><p>"Director?"<p>

Time passed in fits of starts and stops, leaps and crawls for Hope in the interim between their departure and the time of their arrival. He found himself almost utterly incapable of focusing, something that had not happened for at least a decade. Worry and apprehension and that persistent uneasy feeling dogged his steps, and words of conversations happening around him washed over his ears like white noise as he stared uncomprehendingly at the infotablet in his hand.

Why was he concerned, for that matter? Obviously Serah and Noel could take care of themselves. He knew that; had seen it, he was fairly certain. (Could not call up a conscious memory. Knew it, all the same.)

Still, it was impossible to shake the frightening impression that things were going to go some form of horribly wrong.

"Gran Pulse to Director Hope," Alyssa said again, hands on her hips as she leaned over the tablet and stuck her face directly in front of Hope's - a desperate gambit in order to garner his attention.

It worked, in a manner of speaking. Startled, the silver-haired man looked up, letting out a rather undignified "huh?" in his assistant's general direction.

The greenish hue to the hub lighting gave the young woman a sickly cast, but her blue eyes glittered as per usual as she wagged a finger at him teasingly merely three centimeters from his nose. "There you are," she said, sighing dramatically as if she were a harried babysitter looking after an errant child. "You could at least tell me before you zone out, you know."

At the further invasion of his personal space, he took a single step back, shamed by his inattention. "I - sorry," he apologized, rather without eloquence. "I had a lapse in concentration. Could you repeat that?"

"Director, you've been having a lapse all day," Alyssa said bluntly. (He thought he saw a scientist standing nearby glance up at the blonde's tone, surprised that anyone would dare speak to Mr. Estheim like that. It amused Hope in a rather depressing way that so few people had been unflinchingly forthright with him. He could count all of them on two hands, in twenty-seven years.) She studied his face for a moment, pulling back to fold her arms under her chest, a packet of theoretical analyses tucked under them. Her voice was gentler ere she spoke next, though still firm. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you're worrying about them."

Even without specifying "them", he knew the subject of her inquiry, and berated himself for stiffening slightly as if he were a child with his hand in the cookie jar.

The response satisfied the young woman, it seemed, though she still frowned at him maternally. "It's not like you to be so distracted, Director. ...I'm sure they're just fine. Hunting down a few Graviton Cores is a lot easier than taking on a rogue proto-fal'Cie."

"That's true," he conceded, unsure as to why he wasn't just brushing all of this off. "But even so -"

"I'm only going to say this once, Director Hope, so you better listen up." Her lower lip puffed out sternly. "Moping around waiting for those two to get back isn't going to help anyone, least of all them. You can't do anything from here but continue your job -" she paced a few steps to the left, "- which is to lay the foundation for the future they're building." Alyssa turned to face him again. "Or did you forget?" she inquired teasingly. "We can't do this when you're operating at half capacity, Director. The New Cocoon is going to take every bit of effort we can give, and more besides. They have their task, and we have ours. And you're not giving them enough credit - they've pulled through worse before."

She had paced back to her starting point, careful to keep Hope's attention on her as she gave her impromptu chastising-slash-motivational speech. Alyssa was satisfied with her handiwork, as he looked appropriately shamed, and figured she ought to let him off the hook... for now. "Noel knows what he's doing, Director Hope. He'll make sure they come back in one piece."

He really ought to get used to the fact that she could see right through him. It was hardly the first time, after all. But even so, he opened his mouth to protest automatically; however, instead of arguing (falsely) that he was equally concerned about both of them (he was more concerned about Noel and his propensity for hurling himself into harm's way in order to keep Serah out of it than he was about Lightning's sister; he knew how resilient the Farron family line was), he said wryly, "where would I be without you, Alyssa?"

"I shudder to think about that," she answered, jokingly as usual. "Now then, where was I?"

* * *

><p>"Hey, Hope."<p>

The Director started and turned around, having been intently focused on the large keyboard under his fingers and the larger hubsphere before his eyes. The room had been relatively quiet, apart from the whirr and hum of machinery; little of importance was occurring at the present moment, and most Academy personnel had either returned to their individual offices, taken a break for dinner, or gone home for the night. Only a few scientists lingered, manning the computers on elevated platforms. Even so, he had not heard the sound of the bulwark opening - he had, after Alyssa's lecture, thrown himself into his work with abandon, trying to occupy himself enough that the time travelers would not cross his mind.

He heard a few quiet gasps as he looked up, sounds of shock that caused all of his worries to come flooding back. The sight that met his eyes was equally unforgiving to his concerns.

Out of the enclosed tunnel and into the light of the main chamber limped Noel, cloaked in blood, wordlessly sharing his burden of an unconscious Serah with Alyssa; the young woman hung between them, supported by their shoulders, though the scientist was clearly struggling under her meager weight. Mog fluttered weakly beside and behind them.

Heart leaping immediately into his throat, he left his post and hurried over to the trio, shouldering Serah and letting his assistant free. To a staring scientist, he ordered, "two chairs. Closest ones." The man hesitated; Hope was impatient in his fright. "Go!" he snapped, and immediately regretted it, even as he hurried off to do the Lead Adviser's bidding.

"Hope, it's -"

"Save your energy, Noel," he said sternly, wrapping his arm around Serah's waist so as to take on more of the effort of keeping her upright. She stirred slightly at the touch.

"- not as bad as it looks," the hunter finished saying anyway, showcasing stubbornness that almost rivaled Snow's. "Nothing a few Cures won't handle, anyway. Just... ah - out of energy to cast 'em." The brunette slumped against a nearby wall after the healing spell he had summoned up poured into his partner; even as the pink-haired woman twitched and groaned, making her way back to consciousness, Hope sighed in frustration. He wanted to tell Noel to conserve his strength, but what was done was done - and, though the cuts and bruises that littered their bodies would have been child's play to take care of at the height of his l'Cie powers, he could no longer muster even the frailest of spells to alleviate their pain.

He had never been so frustrated at his loss of his magic abilities. Not even in the Massif, when he had had to acquiesce to a pair of armed guards every time he wanted to check on the Gate. Then it had been irritating - now it was physically painful, seeing his closest friends half torn to pieces and being unable to lift a finger to help them.

"What happened?" the silver-haired man asked, seeing that the brunette was flagging. "Noel, stay with me," he pleaded, holding Serah close as he tried in vain to reach Noel while still supporting her properly. The moogle who seemed to disappear from their attentions now and then took it upon himself to worry over the brunette, a worried "kupo..." escaping him as he looked sadly on at his friend's wounds.

Alyssa reappeared at his elbow (when had she left?) with two sugary fruit drinks, and Hope probably could have kissed her on the mouth for her quick thinking, if not for the situation. She thrust it into Noel's hand and told him to "drink it!"; for clarification, he looked at Hope.

"It's for the blood loss," he explained shortly. "It'll help. Trust me."

Apparently that was enough for the hunter, as he obediently tipped his head back and swallowed the concoction in two gulps, his throat working and his mouth twisting slightly at the unfamiliar flavor.

The scientist came back with two folding chairs, and he set them up to the right of the entrance to the hubspace, at Hope's behest. He looked timid but honored to be of use, and Hope could almost hear Noel saying "the esteemed Mr. Estheim" in ironic mockery like he had the night before.

However, he did hear what Noel said behind him as he helped the waking Serah to a chair. "It's almost scary, how much respect you command," he managed to mutter, slurring his words together, slumping into the chair adjacent to Serah and wrapping an arm protectively around her shoulders.

Alyssa was there to gently press the beverage into the young woman's gloved hands as she awoke, coaxing her friend to sip at it.

Hope watched her rouse herself from her stupor with tight anxiety, before he turned and dismissed the scientists in the room at large, utilizing the authority he had not wanted but had been gifted with anyway. The six or seven Academy personnel did not question, filing out of the large room that contained the "brain" of the government foundation - in more ways than one.

They didn't have long before the room filled up again. In fact, he felt incredibly guilty for halting the scientists' work, no matter for how short a time. But Serah and Noel were in trouble; they needed a break, and they needed it now.

"You're both injured. Badly," he said, a matter-of-fact understatement, glancing over Noel and Serah both and taking an inventory of their wounds. It was hard to breathe around the lump in his throat - a lump that grew larger with each new cut and scrape he found on their persons.

Noel grunted in agreement, slouching bonelessly. It seemed to be Serah's turn to support him, and Hope was impressed at how the blood caking his frame (definitely not his; the brunette would have been very, very dead if he had lost that much - Hope's stomach twinged uneasily at even the suggestion) didn't faze her.

For the last, futile time, he went through the motions of casting a spell; an action he had perfected four hundred years ago, but now found impossible to perform. He found no trace of magic within his being, even as he threw himself against his mental "walls", searching.

Feeling impressively useless, Hope sighed, wanting nothing more than to scream at the injustice.

"An emergency care clinic would be the wisest choice," he started to say, but was interrupted by a noise of disagreement from the younger Farron.

"N-no," she struggled to articulate, feebly attempting to stand, as if to show all of them that she was just fine. Noel kept her down with a stern look, much to her chagrin; she did not falter in dismissing Hope's suggestion, however. "No," she said again, her voice firmer, more steady. "Hope, you know they'll...ask too many questions."

He wanted to protest; thought that his influence might loosen the restrictions on medical care. But he faltered at the look in Serah's eyes, bowed his head as he acquiesced to her. They both knew the myriad of problems and difficulties that could blossom from a sudden visit to the hospital by two time travelers from opposite ends of the timeline - Hope had some power, but the Academy was first and foremost a scientific foundation. They'd try their damnedest to pull the two of them into one experiment or another.

"You're right," he relented._ Professional care is off the table. _Then he looked up. "However, I'm putting both of you on bed rest. Immediately. No complaints." The look on his face dared them to argue with him, if they even would; the time travelers had taxed their bodies almost beyond their limits, and no matter how pigheaded and tenacious either Serah or Noel was prone to being, both of them knew better than to cross the Director – especially not with the glitter of anxious concern in his eyes.

"Not to dampen the mood, Director," Alyssa said hesitantly, "but how are they going to get back to the apartments? I mean, they can hardly –"

Noel rising to his feet with a pained grunt half-disguised as a cough cut her off, even as he shook his head. "We can make it that far," he said with certainty that belied his pallid appearance, the drying lifeblood contrasting eerily with the greenish lighting and his unhealthily pale skin.

Hope's lips came together in a thin line, as Serah stood as well, favoring her left leg.

"Noel's right, kupo," Mog put in, flitting about near Serah's shoulder, obviously quite concerned for her. "But a hand or two might be helpful too, kupo!"

The Director nodded, unsurprised by the statement. He had come to the same conclusion as well. "We can take the rest of the night off. Things are proceeding according to plan, and there's not much help we can do here, anyway."

Alyssa grinned at that. "Someone has to keep an eye on you three, after all," she chirped, and Mog agreed, evidently pleased to have been included in the count.

And thus it was decided. Noting Alyssa's slight stature, Noel expended another precious fraction of his strength directing a Cure spell into Serah's injured leg; both she and Hope disapproved, but the ease with which she found herself walking, without having to rest the entirety of her weight on the female scientist, made up for it.

However, the brunette slumped gracelessly as the last vestiges of his energy threatened to give out.

Hope was thankful that Noel didn't seem to weigh much at all, apart from his musculature; he took the brunt of his deadweight on, ducking under his left arm and grasping his belt on his right side to keep him steady. It was in this fashion that the two pairs, accompanied by a moogle, managed to make their way out of the hubspace – Serah and Alyssa encountering much less difficulty than the two men, for obvious reasons, though the female time traveler still needed some guidance, as if she were drunk or dizzy.

As they exited through the bulwark, Noel seemed to tap into some hidden store of energy; he hefted himself up straighter, shaking off Hope's assisting grip, and strode forward into the foyer boldly, ignoring the ominous clicking of his left knee.

There were few milling scientists and other personnel, though those who remained over the dinner period looked on with surprise, shock, and awe at the disheveled figures that emerged. (Hope wondered idly how they could look so surprised; Noel and Serah had to have passed them on their way in, probably in a worse state. Though he could understand that perhaps they were more surprised to see _him _smeared with blood by proxy, as he usually took care to look professional in front of his colleagues.)

"Mr. Estheim –" one of them said, stepping forward in concern, but his nod and charitable smile cut the young woman off, and she clutched the folder in her hand close to her chest.

"There's nothing to be concerned about," he assured those in the room, though few of them were paying attention to him anymore. Noel continued forward, not stopping, and in her concern Serah half-limped after him, tailed by Alyssa who stopped at the center reception desk to pick up two medkits.

"But you're covered in blood!" the other woman squeaked, taking a reflexive step back.

He might have been a little offended at that, but he knew how gruesome the sight must be to the virgin eye – he had shied away from Light in the same manner once, in the Vile Peaks when she had had to take care of a rather messy pack of daemons. (He shoved the memory away. It wasn't one he needed to have.)

In a placating gesture, he raised his hands, and held them palm outwards. "I'm not injured," he told her, "but the wounds in question will be taken care of." He noted the disappearance of his three and a half companions, and hoped to himself that Noel remembered the way well enough, as he had taken off so quickly that Hope wasn't sure if he could catch up properly.

But he couldn't leave the Academy building without putting their worries to rest for good.

"There are times at which one's ideals may force one to step into the front lines in order to uphold them," he said, his gaze flicking from one person to the next in the room, as they stared at him like frightened chocobos. "Serah and Noel are acquaintances of mine, and comrades of ours in our fight to better humankind. The road to the future is a difficult one, and we all have our tasks to fulfill; theirs has put them in harm's way many times, but their job is theirs alone, and they are the only ones who can do it." It wasn't just the Academy he was giving the pep talk to – but himself, as well, reusing a few of the concepts Alyssa had presented to him earlier in order to beat his own doubts into submission. "Just as each of you has a duty," he continued. "The journey forward is long and arduous, but if we each take a step at a time, we will soon reach its end."

Hope swallowed. He hadn't known quite where he was going with the impromptu speech he found himself embroiled in. But his audience was staring at him still with wide eyes, nearly begging him to continue. And in a way, he needed himself to as well.

The dried and caked blood on his skin made him itch, and he scratched nervously at the back of his neck. "There were," he began again, "many people over the course of history who gave much to our future." Faces and names flitted across his consciousness, and he gave voice to the latter, speaking almost hesitantly - yet uncontrollably, as if the words were the trickle of a faucet, or a torrent that could not be dammed. "Oerba Dia Vanille. Oerba Yun Fang. Natives of Gran Pulse who shouldered a world." He cleared his throat again, shoving back the raw, untreated grief that threatened to seep in even now. "Lightning Farron, Snow Villiers, Serah Farron, Sazh Katzroy, and Dajh Katzroy; former l'Cie of Cocoon and Pulse, who took on and defeated a Focus - pursuing their own idea of a better future. These are all extraordinary examples. I agree. But I remind you also of..." he swallowed gently, schooling his thoughts and emotions and separating himself from the rather potent memory that arose, "the victims of the first and only Purge, four hundred years ago. Innocent men and women, as ordinary as you and I, who rose up and championed truth and freedom. ...And there is one hero I speak of in particular; one who died defending others, saving an important life. She was a loving wife and mother who gave her life to protect her family.

"Her name," he said, "was Nora Estheim."

A collective thrill of surprise went through the room. The tale of Hope Estheim's mother had remained untold through the ages; a fact that had eluded the post-Fall lexicon, to the consternation of some scholars. The man himself was enough of a mystery - and he was flesh and blood before them. To hear him speak of his family, especially his mother (who was rumored to be one of his driving forces, truthfully), was unusual, almost frighteningly so. It lent a further surreal quality to the event; not only was the Lead Adviser, a celebrity in his own right, addressing them, but he was veritably drenched in gore - and speaking of events long past, of which no one knew the details with any certainty; no one, that was, besides himself.

He would soon come to regret this. But he didn't know what would arise of the graceless event at the time.

The passion with which he spoke abruptly left him, high and dry, and he realized he didn't have any clue as to how to link the tangential argument back to his original point - what had he been thinking? He had only been trying to quell the potential for rumors to start, not - give a speech on motivation! Hope might have been a relatively well-spoken man, but he was no professional orator. He had avoided this type of thing in the past, and for good reason.

At least he would only be embarrassing himself in front of these few people. How many were present? Twenty? By no means was it an impressive number; still, he hoped his reputation would carry him through the mess he had accidentally engineered. (He blamed the story he had told the night before, for evoking such emotions. Though perhaps he had been not quite himself for longer than that... a certain memory of being held close to a friend's muscular side, hearing his soothing, steady heartbeat came to mind.)

Hope flushed slightly, but attributed it flimsily to stress. He yet found it somewhat difficult to face the truth when he was not alone and in the dark, after all.

The pause had stretched on much too long, he realized. He could almost hear someone beginning to mutter - though at this point, it could just as easily be the voice of doubt in the back of his head as it could any real person. Hope cleared his throat and tried his luck at pulling some words from midair, suddenly timid; he felt as if he were attempting to cradle a hundred marbles.

"No matter who you are or how little you may feel you matter, your contributions make a difference. They could decide success or failure." Not able to find anything else to say, any more words to tug forth from nooks and crannies, he ducked his head, avoiding the judgmental looks of the members of his audience, those who had witnessed an unplanned speech and a crack in Mr. Estheim's shell. "...Thank you," he remembered to add, belatedly.

Silence. One second turned into three, then five.

Someone, one lone soul started to clap; the sound was as sudden as a gunshot at first, but was joined soon by more and more people. Hope looked up in surprise as someone whistled.

Embarrassed, the silver-haired man made for the door, slipping through the press of bodies. Twenty people suddenly seemed like a thousand. Feather-light touches passed his clothes as colleagues reached out to him, as if he were a vision with no corporeal form; the sensation unnerved him, and he strove to escape even quicker.

The dying light was like a breath of fresh air as he exited the Academy, and he began to make his way home, concern for his friends animating his movements and pushing thoughts of the previous event out of his mind – hurrying his steps all the time.

* * *

><p>"Noel –"<p>

He produced the extra key card from the pouch behind his waist, gently limping forward to insert it into the door. Serah stood behind him and a little to the right, her arms clasped behind her back; Alyssa was next to her, holding two medkits close to her chest with a look of apprehension. Neither female was entirely pleased with the hunter as of the moment. He had been giving very little response when spoken to, mostly wordless grunts as he worked on forcing his overspent body back to the apartment.

It was because Serah was a little better that he was tired and overtaxed, however, and this she was irritated at him for. _If things go on like this much longer, _she thought, _he'll die! He has to consider his own wellbeing for once. _As Lightning was her older sister - had raised her since she was twelve – and Snow was her fiancé, she was well-accustomed to people going out of their way to help her. Not that she enjoyed it. She didn't. At all. Hated it, rather – had tried to force it into their thick skulls that she was capable of taking care of herself, and that they needn't worry. And now Noel, too, was shooting himself in the foot to make her limp go away! Where was the justice?

Noel tried to leave them standing outside, on top of it. Serah would have none of it; sticking her foot in the motion-sensor door, she plowed through after the silent man, hot on his heels as she stormed into the apartment. After hesitating a moment, Alyssa hurried in after her, pressing the small button on the interior wall that closed the door.

The bubblegum-haired young woman was nowhere to be found, at first, and neither was her companion; but the sound of raised voices guided the assistant to the bathroom adjacent to the tidy bedroom in which she assumed the Director slept. (It was a strange peek into his personal life, but it wasn't like there was much to be found, anyway. He had done little to make the space his own, besides the addition of a small picture frame on the bedside table that held an image of a beautiful woman with his same hair and eyes. _His mother?_)

" – should know better than to risk healing me when you're about to pass out, Noel!" the Farron woman said shrilly, audible through the open door. It had been evident that she had been rather high-strung lately, and it seemed it was time for the bubble to burst, at least to Alyssa. And though there was no audible response from the hunter, the young scientist in question wisely did not invade on the scene in the bathroom, but she could make out the sound of water pouring from the faucet and a hiss every now and then that sounded like it came from Noel. His companion was probably cleaning his wounds – by force.

Suddenly she remembered the medkits, and roused herself from exploring Hope's room (rather guiltily), knowing that the supplies in the box would probably do a whole world of good for the injured young man; more so than a washcloth, she was certain. So she poked her head in the door, with a quiet "here, Serah," and handed her one of the plastic boxes.

The bathroom was just as white as the walls and furnishings; the towels, shower curtain, and a rug on the floor were all the same shade of steel gray, and the sink fixture gleamed chrome as well. The mirror was set into the wall to the point where its edges were hardly even visible.

Noel was sitting on the counter next to the sink, his shirt discarded on the white linoleum. Scratches littered his torso, the majority obscured by dried blood, but few looked severe, apart from a rather painful-looking gash that traced his left hipbone. While his skin was typically a wild tan, almost bronze, he appeared ghostly pale under the white lights. His face was even more pallid, and, while having escaped most of the abuse, was also encrusted with brown flakes of old blood. Azure eyes seemed dull and grey with pain, and his hair was matted and sweaty, though he was not looking at her. (Alyssa might've clucked her tongue approvingly at the view, if not for the gruesome "decorations" and her current resentment of the young man.)

Serah received the kit thankfully, and set it on the half of the counter that had avoided being desecrated by the remnants of their battles. She glanced up at Noel, who was still eyeing her with frustration, his teeth gritted as her gentle fingers wrapped around his bare ankle. On the floor next to his sandals, her gloves were discarded. She knelt among them, lower lip puffed out petulantly as she touched the joint carefully.

The hiss that escaped through his teeth was enough for her to decide on something, apparently, and she closed her eyes and tensed for a moment; then the both of them suddenly relaxed, and Serah wobbled even as Noel growled. "Serah –"

"Now we're even," she mumbled, regaining her balance by setting her free palm on the floor, making an irritated sound as it brushed a small pool of reddish liquid.

Alyssa worried her bottom lip between white teeth, withdrawing from the scene and returning to her perusals. However, it wasn't but a moment before she heard a smack and a grumble from the young female time traveler. "Silly me!" she exclaimed. "Noel, just take a shower. It'll help clean your wounds and then we don't have to use up the medkit supplies."

"You first," he responded sternly. "I'm okay for right now, but you look dead on your feet, Serah. And your leg –"

"I'm fine," she argued.

A prolific sigh.

"There's a shower back at my place," Alyssa said loudly, chiming into the discussion as she poked around in Hope's closet, finding nothing but three sets of the same Academy uniform. _ Boring, Director, _she teased silently. "I don't know about leaving you here by yourself while we wait on Director Hope, though," she continued on to say. _He's usually very prompt. I don't know what's gotten into the Director lately, but he sure isn't acting himself..._

"Serah, go with Alyssa. That cut can't fester."

"Noel, it's fi –"

"No, it's not. I can see you wince every time you put weight on it."

There was a pause, probably as the young woman flushed and refused to respond to the hunter, embarrassed at having been found out. "It's really nothing big..."

"Maybe, maybe not. It still needs to get cleaned," he said pointedly. "Serah, I know you're being stubborn because you're concerned, but I'm fine. Really. It's you I'm worried about – "

"You're one to talk!" she interrupted angrily. "You can't keep throwing yourself in front of every Cie'th or behemoth that comes after me, Noel. I'm not a child! I can handle myself!"

Silence. Even Alyssa had sucked in a breath at her friend's sudden outburst. _Serah..._

"Just look at yourself," the young woman said weakly, after a few seconds had passed. "I can't stand to see you half torn to pieces, Noel. You try your hardest to keep me out of danger, with no regard for _your _safety." It was evident she was trying to be gentle, trying to soothe the sting of her temper getting the better of her for a moment before. "There are people who care about you, too. When you take a hit for me, they take it as well." Her tone was pleading; desperate. "Think of how much it hurts Hope every time he sees you like this. He really cares about you, you know."

"Serah..."

"And I do, too. So please, Noel - please, just try to play it safe for once. I -"

A loud knock cut her off, accompanied by footsteps that seemed too soft to carry. Alyssa quickly seated herself on the corner of Hope's tidy bed, tugging the infotablet out of her side pouch to appear occupied. "Noel?" the Director called inquisitively from the next room over, and the conversation in the bathroom ground to a screeching halt; they froze, as if caught doing something they weren't supposed to be doing.

"In here, Director," Alyssa called, thumbing open a weekly weather report. (The clouds that had popped up midmorning looked ominous, and the report echoed the smell of rain outside; the forecasted storm looked brutal.)

He veritably ghosted into the room. The relative silence of Hope's footsteps would have been unnerving if not for the carpeted floor; he glanced through the open bathroom door at Noel and Serah with concern, even as Alyssa shifted to tuck one leg under herself. The infotablet display danced under her fingers as she opened a radar imager to track the storm's movement.

"Hi, Hope," Serah chirped, her voice jumping about an octave and a third. She squeaked at the lapse.

A silver eyebrow arched.

"Is something going on?" he asked lightly.

"N-no," she stammered, rocking back on the balls of her feet as she prepared to stand. "We were just -"

"Leaving," Noel finished sternly, ignoring the way she glanced at him, obviously upset. "To go to Alyssa's and get patched up."

"Noel, I -"

"I see," Hope said at the same time, then glanced at Serah, not meaning to have interrupted her. She nodded to signal he ought to continue, though her face was slightly flushed in frustration.

"It's probably the best idea," he said haltingly, his gaze flicking to each of his companions - friends - in turn. "This apartment is hardly large enough for two infirm, let alone Alyssa and myself on top of it." Hope resolutely ignored the mess the treatment had made of his bathroom, instead looking between Serah and Noel, both of whom looked as if they were on the verge of collapse. His expression softened at Serah's red-rimmed eyes; she looked as if she had been crying, or had been just about to begin. Noel appeared to be no better: his face was drawn and tense, belying a deep-seated pain, yet his cheekbones were slightly flushed. _I wonder what I missed..._

He returned to his previous point with fervor, determined to begin schooling his wayward thoughts into some sort of order again. His mental state had been erratic and frenzied for the last few days - he was scatterbrained and distracted, and it was a true miracle that Alyssa had not called him out on it till today. (And there, again! The tangential thought was unnecessary and without purpose. _What's gotten into me lately? _Of course, an obvious cause revealed itself to him immediately, but he pushed it away. He refused to accept the idea that some ridiculous _crush_ could throw him off to such a frightening degree. It was unheard-of.)

Hope snapped back to himself abruptly as Serah suddenly spoke.

"I guess you're right, Hope," she conceded with a sigh. She started to stand; the silver-haired man in question stepped forward, offering her a hand to help her up - one which she gladly took. Once on her feet, she reached over and squeezed Noel's hand, giving him a pointed look before slipping past Hope, out of the bathroom and into the bedroom towards Alyssa, her gloves dangling limply in her other hand.

The ex-Director glanced between Noel and Serah in confusion; the former stared into space, failing to notice his glimpse, and the latter was attempting to read Alyssa's infotablet upside-down, not focused on him whatsoever.

He couldn't help but feel as if he was missing something that was completely obvious. The impression niggled at him, not sitting well with his personality; he was fairly observant by nature, and it wasn't often that something that gave off the notion of being fairly evident continued to elude him.

His conjectures at length made no sense, even to him, so he abandoned the train of thought immediately.

Ten feet away, Serah swayed.

He was at her side in an instant, Noel hot on his heels (with a stifled, pained groan), but the assistant had beaten the both of them there. A thin arm looped around the injured woman's waist as Alyssa stored her infotablet again, letting Serah lean on her gently as she smiled slyly at the two men.

"It _has_ been a pleasure," she trilled, "but we really must take our leave now, gentlemen." And at her tone, the bubblegum-haired woman giggled, just as Hope's lips quirked. In a sense, his assistant was the barometer of his reality; if she was cracking jokes, then all was in balance in the world.

However, as if not trusting her lighthearted tone, Noel hovered still at Serah's elbow. Their eyes met for a moment, and a silent thread of communication seemed to pass between them; a beat later, the younger Farron set one hand gently but firmly on the hunter's bicep, the tips of her fingers digging in just slightly as he bowed his head in response.

"You first, Noel," she said quietly, almost whispered, and the words made little sense to Hope; he felt like an intruder on a private moment, and glanced away politely, even as something jerked in his lower stomach.

The two took their leave without ceremony, Hope retrieving the spare medkit from the dresser in his room and seeing them off at the door. He wanted to accompany them, to make sure they got back all right, but Serah practically ordered him to look after Noel. That, and Mog - who had reappeared from playing with some children outside - promised to make sure that they stayed "out of trouble, kupo!"

Heartened, he bid them safe traveling, gripping both of their hands firmly, as if the force of his hold could guarantee their safety and wellbeing.

* * *

><p>Noel was eyeing himself in the mirror when he returned, using a bloodstained washcloth to scrub his face and feeding a steady stream of magic into the cuts that continued to bleed. The effort was minimal, but saved him much discomfort – however, in his already taxed state, the healing of the small cuts (bits of crystal, he thought) on his face caused his limbs to shake slightly once he had finished, and he sighed and rested against the counter, leaning against Hope gratefully when the latter approached to be of some assistance.<p>

"Noel," Hope said lowly, feeling the quiet atmosphere of the cramped bathroom acutely.

The hunter shifted and rotated one shoulder back, letting out a satisfied sound when it cracked into place. "Hope," he said in response, though the second half of the syllable was drowned out amidst the humongous yawn that escaped him. "... 'm tired."

At his tone, a deep chuckle escaped the scientist. "Get cleaned up," he ordered gently but firmly. "I'll get you some clothes." He was, admittedly, wary of letting the other man alone when he seemed ready to fall unconscious, but he figured he was well enough to yet maintain his dignity.

Upon making sure that Noel could stand and move well enough on his own, he exited the small bathroom and made his way over to the dresser, rummaging around within for a blue shirt and a pair of black slacks. Holding the diminutive bundle in his arms, he gently shouldered the partially-closed door open and stepped in -

- and stopped dead short, freezing as he took in the sight before him.

Noel was standing with his back to the door, busying himself with stretching the kinks out of his muscles and joints. The bare, tan expenses of his back rippled as sinew contorted; he raised both arms above his head, palms together, and grunted suddenly as his knuckles and fingers collided with the ceiling. The utterance covered the surprised sound that escaped Hope's mouth as he observed the scene, noticing the way Noel's narrow hips tapered into the wide waistband of his pants, the collection of pale and raised scars that littered the hunter's flesh - especially a pair of lines that extended from his shoulders to the opposite hipbones, crossing in the middle like a macabre X, the scars ropy, bespeaking of wounds that had been painful and messy at the time they had been received.

Traitorously, he wondered what those bumps and ridges would feel like under his fingers.

"Sneaking around?" Noel said without turning around, and Hope started guiltily before the brunette turned to face him. "You know, Hope, you're too quiet for your own good - ghostlike actually. You're definitely pale enough."

He tried to fight down the blush that had dusted itself along his features. Failing that, he averted his gaze from the hunter somewhat awkwardly, making a noncommittal noise in response to his light teasing. "I-I'll leave these here," he stammered weakly, set the clothes on the clean side of the counter and slipped out before Noel could catch him.

He thought that he might have heard the time traveler begin to call his name, but his feet carried him out of earshot, through the bedroom door to the main expanse of the apartment. He had managed to keep himself from running away outright, schooling his adrenaline impulse born of fear and embarrassment into submission, but he had been holding his breath - he realized this as he sighed and leaned back against the whitewashed wall, drawing his arms around himself and ignoring the blood staining the right side of his Academy uniform.

This wasn't like him. He hadn't been himself for a while; instead of the driven, intelligent young man he had been lauded as, he had veritably degenerated into - what? A love-stricken airhead? He shivered at the thought. Rejected it.

But he didn't... he _liked _Noel. Found him interesting, enjoyed spending time with him; he had a sense of humor, practically exuded determination, had an engaging personality... was attractive...

He supposed he was cross not with Noel and not with his own feelings, but with his own inexperience and inability to - to function when encountered with things like this. Of course he had had crushes before. Most of them had come about before he had become a l'Cie, however... since during that time he had little time for some things, and afterwards he had all but thrown himself into his work and his education. (He was aware Lightning and Snow had thought he had had a crush on Vanille - he supposed, though, that she was more of a sister figure or a close friend.)

Simply, the novelty of the experience - and its uncertainty - did not sit well with him. It was the not knowing how or what to do, how to move forward, that put him on edge and made him feel as if he was going crazy.

This he realized with a sigh. Hope pushed himself off the wall; he remembered the whiteness of the furniture and the dried blood caking his uniform jacket and, pulling off his gloves first, took the heavy outer article of clothing off and cast it over a stool sitting at the bar. The room felt slightly chilly as he stood in a dress shirt and tie. He cast his arms about himself loosely, padding over to the couch and seating himself at the corner, sinking into the throw that covered this side of the sofa.

The fabric smelled like Noel, he noticed dimly; the fact that he had recognized the detail surprised him, though probably not as much as it should have - he couldn't bring himself to reject the interest in the other man anymore, didn't have the energy or the drive to fight that particular losing battle.

Besides, the musky aroma that smelled rather paradoxically like darkness and sand and sunlight was quite curiously comforting.

* * *

><p>"Hope."<p>

The whisper was calm and gentle, pulling him back to consciousness slowly rather than suddenly as he was wont to do as of late. There was a warmth suffusing him. Holding onto it with both hands, he barely even moved at the call, determined to hang onto that peace for as long as he could; the persuasive voice tugged him forth, however.

"Hope... wake up," it said, fondly but with a hint of a long-suffering air to it.

"Nngh," he grumbled petulantly, exhibiting a spectacular range and depth of vocal expression.

Sudden movement stirring the locks of his hair - fingers slipped between the strands, tousling them and massaging his scalp with soft pads. The sensation drew Hope's eyes open, and he stared half-awake up at a grinning Noel in confusion.

"Hmm?" he mumbled in response to the amused look scrawled across his face, impressively failing to notice the tenderness in Noel's touch as he stretched, pointing his toes and raising his arms above his head, feeling one of his shoulders crack into place with a small amount of pleasure.

"You're so catlike," Noel noted quietly. "Like Serah's cat, Snow."

The silver-haired man made a face. "Don't compare me to Snow," he complained weakly, though his good mood was not dampened. "Not even the cat."

Noel snorted and withdrew his hand (much to Hope's displeasure), folding his arms over the medkit in his grip. The toned stomach underneath was still bare; the blue shirt dangled from his arm. Crisp white bandages encircled his arms -

Hope jolted upright. He had left an injured Noel to fend for himself and clean his own wounds while he had taken a _nap! _"Noel, I-" he started to say in apology.

At the same time, Noel had begun to speak as well. "Uh, Hope-" he managed to get out before they both froze, comprehending the timing and each looking at the other in confusion. The brunette held his gaze for only a moment before he coughed and glanced away, unable to stare into deep turquoise eyes for too long lest he get distracted and forget what he was doing. His query was awkward and halting, and the tips of two of his fingers caressed the edge of the - the gash on his side.

Hope stared at the wound. Now that the surrounding blood had been washed away, it looked less severe, but the exposed pink flesh and Noel's hesitant fingers spoke of a lingering tenderness. Layers of skin appeared to have been ripped away, torn instead of stabbed.

"Can you help me wrap -" the hunter had the time to ask, before Hope was on his feet, seizing him by the forearm and leading the surprised younger man over to the couch. He was laying on his good side almost before he could blink, the silver-haired man having removed the shirt and medkit from his grip swiftly.

Hope perched on the edge of the couch, next to Noel's stomach, balancing the open medkit on his thighs. He reached to pull off his gloves, realizing suddenly that he had already done so a little while ago; his hands hovered awkwardly in the air before they descended to rest lightly just on the edges of the wound.

Noel hissed through his teeth as pale fingers inspected the wound, and Hope's frown deepened each time he caused the hunter discomfort. He had to make sure he knew exactly which parts to apply medcream to, and how much - the process of dressing wounds was a lot more difficult than simply healing them.

And a lot more painful. At a particularly loud growl of discomfort that issued forth, Hope took a moment to close his eyes and steel himself. He hated causing pain like this, but he had to know precisely what he was up against. Healing similar wounds for Lightning and Fang after taking on Gorgonopsids and, in a rare instance, a Behemoth, had been easy in comparison.

But he'd lost that ability. It was long gone. Yet privately, passionately, he _wished -_

"Hope?" he heard Noel say. In surprise. The tone was wrong; he sounded - awestruck, almost?

And as he opened his eyes, he realized his fingers had gone chill.

More importantly, he noticed something else, regarding reality with a disbelieving eye. _Huh?_

The patch of missing skin was smaller and shallower than it had been. Where before it had been as wide as his palm and the length of his forearm, now the stripe of pink was about the width of two pads of his fingers and the length of his thumb.

And there was a certain fading bluish-greenish-white glow around his hand that he glimpsed for only a moment, as his gaze whipped to Noel's, eyes wide and bright.

The hunter was staring at him unabashedly, shock evident in azure depths; the hunter knew of Hope's inability to use magic, and the question lingering in his eyes was enough for him to feel a chill race down his spine.

"Did I-" he began to ask, but the phrase died in his throat as Noel nodded.

"I don't know how, but you did," he said wonderingly. As one who could cast spells as well, and had done so for as long as he could remember, it was hard for the brunette to fathom what Hope had gone through, losing a skill that had become such an integral part of him in that short period of time. He also had no idea as to how to get it back - he had been nothing special back in his time and, in fact, children who could not cast spells had been as rare as those who could in the time immediately following the Fall. Point being, the idea of losing - and regaining - one's propensity for magic was alien to him.

Hope's face tightened as he frowned at his hand, the one still covering the wound; seconds passed, and he almost seemed to begin to quiver with unhappiness. When he next looked to Noel, it was with a pained quirk to his lips that had nothing in common with a smile.

"I can't do it," he admitted quietly, shaking his head. "I don't know what I did or how I did it - Noel, I can't -"

Sensing that the scientist would talk himself into a downward spiral if allowed to continue, Noel hefted himself into a sitting position, marveling at the tiny twinge of pain that was a far cry from the dull roar of earlier. Hope didn't meet his eyes, averting his gaze as the hunter righted himself, studiously refusing to let his shoulders shake.

_I have to give him something else to focus on._

"Hope," he said, somewhat sharper than necessary in order to garner a response. He reached out and clasped the silver-haired man's forearm, bare fingers sliding against white synthetic cotton fabric with a rustle. His friend did not glance up, still concentrating on his hand - palm up now, without the wound in reach - with gray eyebrows furrowed angrily.

Frustrated, the brunette slid closer, clasping the pale hand in his own. Fingers wrapped around the back of the appendage as their palms pressed together. "Damn it, Hope," he veritably growled, "_look at me._"

Startled, the older man did. Noel was taken aback by the rawness of the emotion in his chrysoprase eyes; loss, anguish, want, and determination threatened to spill out in what might be the form of outraged tears, if the way his eyes sparkled was of any indication. He looked so vulnerable, in stark contrast to the reserved and extraordinarily focused young man he outwardly presented as, that the time traveler had to take a long moment to compose himself. _Ah ah ah, _a part of him scolded. _Now's not the time, lover boy._

It was really quite concerning that the voice in his head sounded so much like that damn blonde assistant of Hope's, but he put the thought aside for later as he held the scientist's gaze. He didn't know what to say - he just wanted to distract his friend from continuing the progression of his thoughts.

Hope, it seemed, would have none of that. He took a long breath to steel himself, but the words still came out in a jumble. "I'm so close to getting it back. I _did _it, by accident, but no matter how hard I try I can't make it happen. It's..." he paused to find the right word, "infuriating. To want something with everything you have and to be so close that you can _taste _it, but no matter what you do, you fail to reach it. Noel, you don't know what that's like -"

"Yeah," he bit out, interrupting Hope almost indignantly, partly because this was the wrong track of conversation and partly because he _did _know. "I do."

_There is a girl in his arms, breathing her last breaths. Silver-blue locks cascade over his arms like a steely waterfall, her thin form almost dangerously fragile. Deep green-blue-green eyes gleam with the wisdom of ages and the innocence of youth, the youth she is not destined to have._

_Concrete sand under him. Rain and a bone-dry wind, and Serah is or is not beside him. But the girl's expression is the same either way, and the spots, blemishes that appear on her cheeks, are wet sky tears._

Hope froze with his mouth half-open, gaping for a moment as he comprehended that he had misspoken. He seemed to deflate slightly, gaze dropping to their clasped hands. "I'm sorry," he apologized, his voice faint.

Noel frowned sharply. In a sudden motion, he brought their entwined hands to the remnant of the gash tracing his hipbone. The action caused Hope to jerk in surprise, but he righted himself and glanced at the hunter questioningly.

Before he could ask, the younger man started to speak.

"I'm gonna try to walk you through this, Hope," he declared. "I don't really know what I'm doing, but I do know that you casting magic requires a lot of focus. So - I need you to really, _really _focus for me. Okay?"

He almost looked as if he wanted to argue, or say something else, but a beat passed and he acquiesced to the request. He inclined his head gently in a half-nod. "Okay," he agreed.

"Right. Uh." The hunter cleared his throat. "Think about what was going through your mind when you did it last time. Do you remember?"

The pink skin was soft under his pads. "Yes," he said weakly. He did. He had been desperate to heal Noel; the wound wasn't serious at the time, but it would have gotten infected almost instantly, and while Noel would have been able to heal it the next day when he had recovered his strength, curing an infection was a lot riskier than a clean wound - on top of that, he was only passably proficient at wound-dressing, and if he had messed up, it would have done more harm than good. Facing those circumstances, knowing that he had solved problems like it with less than a thought thirteen and four hundred years ago - coupled with his entire being rebelling at the thought of losing his best friend to something so trivial - filled Hope with a kind of frustrated energy, the likes of which he hadn't felt since...since Palumpolum, actually.

It was the same drive that had pushed him forward in Light's footsteps.

"I stopped asking - I demanded. I kicked the door in instead of knocking," he said, the metaphor drawing a wry expression of his lips. "There's nothing left of the font of magic from when I was a l'Cie. It came from somewhere else, and I managed to pull it out without knowing where."

A laugh twinkled in Noel's eyes as well, but he looked thoughtful. Only a few seconds passed between the affirmative noise he gave in recognition and the point at which he spoke next, but it was an eternity for Hope, who had returned to an earlier thought.

_Is he really my best friend? _he wondered to himself. _Yes, _he knew for certain merely a beat later. He wasn't sure when the shift had occurred, but after an indeterminate eternity, he knew that he held the young man before him in high regard. Somehow, the hunter had grown to rival Lightning in importance, both as friend and mentor, in a sense. There was Lightning, who had taken him in and taught him to survive when the world left him for dead, who had promised to keep him safe - and then there was Noel, who had seen him at his best and his worst, had taken him without judgment, shown Hope the future he now strove for; helped him to feel as if his life could be more than atoning for past transgressions and righting wrongs. Had given him the chance to feel _normal; _when (not if) they succeeded in their task, brought Fang and Vanille and Lightning home and raised the New Cocoon, what would he do then? He would be a living relic of an age gone by, have no purpose in life without the crusade putting the timeline to rights had become.

Of course, they were his family. But he didn't want the rest of his life to revolve around the wonderful hell his fourteenth year had been - which it would, if he didn't begin to forge new relationships. And so Noel was equally as precious to him, but in a different manner entirely.

"I have an idea," the hunter said slowly, his bare side vibrating with the exhale of breath - the side that Hope was still touching, feeling muscles under his hands. The scientist froze immediately, a traitorous flush rising to his face; he had been so focused earlier that he had failed to realize that Noel was quite literally still shirtless, and that they were - and, well, this position was entirely too intimate for having come about completely on accident. But he managed to restrain himself from recoiling out of embarrassment, rationalizing that the action would raise some unfortunate questions - and resolutely ignoring the fact that he didn't mind this _at all, _surprisingly enough.

"There has to be some way to find that magic."

It took Hope a second to return to the topic at hand.

Noel continued, heedless of his friend's inconspicuous inattention. "There's only one way I know of to do something like this, find something that's hidden way down in you somewhere, and that's by meditating."

Hope wondered if Noel realized that his thumb was absently stroking the silver-haired man's knuckles.

"Sounds like your magic is linked to strong emotions," he pointed out, not really looking at his friend as he spoke, but more off to the side, as if continuing to think while he spoke. "Though it could be that it's just...easier for you to reach inside yourself when you're upset. Right now we can't really tell.

"Meditating can give you that insight. You can take a real good look at what's going on inside your own head - and it might be possible to find that string of magic and follow it all the way down to wherever the rest of it's hiding." He nodded as if to punctuate his own statement. "I can teach you a few things and you can give it a shot, if you want."

The idea sounded plausible and productive to the scientist, but he still took a few moments to weigh the pros and cons, staring blankly at the elbow of Noel's right arm as he thought. Eventually he opened his mouth to respond.

"Will you... try it with me?" he inquired quietly, haltingly. At the way the hunter suddenly stiffened, he backtracked to clarify. "I mean, I know I have to figure this out on my own, but..." The silver-haired man swallowed sharply. "It would - it would be comforting to know I wasn't the only one. Trying to make sense of this, I mean."

Sapphire and chrysoprase met again, old friends by this time.

Noel's grip tightened comfortably, squeezing his hand. "Be happy to," he assured his companion.

* * *

><p><em>x.<em>

* * *

><p>"Noel."<p>

Eyelids slammed open; fingertips twitched and brushed against like skin. Eyelashes fluttered; locks swayed. Irises and pupils flicked to the side; fingers twined together, grip tightening.

In such fashion, the hunter was roused from his own calming exercise by the call of his name, immediately shifting in orientation to regard his companion with a turned head and inquisitive eyes.

Yet the other man stirred not at all. Hope sat cross-legged upon the bed, merely a foot from the brunette. He was clad in his work uniform minus the top layer, but his feet and hands were bare - his right hand currently resided in Noel's left, the pale digits entangled in healthy tan. It was he who had called Noel's name, yet his eyes remained calmly closed, his face impassive. He looked almost statuesque, as if he hadn't moved in centuries.

Suddenly he relaxed, slouching forward as half-lidded teal orbs flickered to the right, landing upon the hunter's concerned visage with a dazed and tired smile. "I think I may have figured it out," he said, accepting the shoulder that the younger man offered for support and pressing his own against it, sitting up straighter after a few moments.

"You think?" Noel asked, not at all flippant. He found it almost difficult to speak past the dryness of his mouth for a moment; he remained hyper-aware of the pressure of Hope's fingers against his own, and it took some attention to keep that hand perfectly still, so as to not shift by accident and alert the scientist to the fact that they sort of maybe seemed like - no, okay, fuck that, they _were _actually holding hands (and while Noel was enjoying the contact, he was pretty sure Hope would freak out if he noticed).

Hope made an inarticulate noise of affirmation. He squeezed Noel's hand, startling him, and then drew his own from the grip, glancing over his fingers with interested concentration.

A beat passed; then another crawled by. The scientist's eyebrows drew together, a deep wrinkle springing up between them. The nearby hunter fought down the urge to touch his friend's shoulder comfortingly, sensing the distraction wouldn't help matters. Two pairs of eyes watched and waited.

Something shifted, and Noel inhaled sharply - not quite a gasp - as the tiniest spark of a flame burst to life at the tip of Hope's index finger. The fire, however, was not red or orange; it burned a greenish-bluish-turquoise, much the color of the man's own eyes. Like the wick of a candle, it burned steadily, heedless of the world continuing to move around it - until it suddenly bowed and was snuffed out, unable to keep on.

The voided space held their gazes for a moment. Noel was too surprised to have much to say at all; his throat refused to work properly, words stifled by the heavy atmosphere between and around himself and the ex-l'Cie beside him...who had just, judging from the previous event, recovered his ability to use magic.

An eternity and a moment later, the silver-haired man huffed and leaned forward, sighing out his nose as he propped his elbows on his knees and tucked his face into his hands. The muscles in his back were stiff with tension, as his companion realized upon resting his left hand softly upon his right shoulder blade. However, the touch seemed to cause more of that stress to leave Hope's body, as he sighed again, shoulders caving as he allowed himself to relax.

"It's different," he murmured, seemingly out of nowhere. The comment made both perfect and no sense to the brunette. The older man seemed to realize this, shifting a bit to tilt his head up towards the ceiling as he elaborated. "It's like...when I was a l'Cie, my intentions translated directly to my spells. I would think, _'heal Lightning',_ or _'freeze that enemy'_, and it would happen, just like that. Even if I couldn't put it into words sometimes - I could just wish them better." There was a distant look on his face, as if he wasn't quite in the present. The light from the bedside lamp struck his face sideways, cutting deep shadows across the side of his face that Noel could see best. "After we woke up from crystal stasis, something changed. I couldn't do things when I put my entire being to them that I had done without a second thought, once upon a time." The frown that crept over his face was like the sun setting. "I lost my life when the Purge started. After the Fall, I lost everything all over again. My family, and anything that gave me a sense of identity. All I had left was my wits. I mean, I had my father, but...after we lost Mom, after the Fall, I wasn't really his son anymore."

Hope cleared his throat harshly. The sound was jarring to Noel, and he stirred and slid closer to the scientist, who continued as if he hadn't noticed. "He treated me like an adult, which I suppose is what I always wanted from him, but... I was fourteen. Everything I had was gone without a trace and I wasn't ready to stand on my own like that. I didn't have Lightning to push me forward when I wanted to lay down and just give up. So I did it myself. I used my wits, got myself through school and into the Academy without leaning on my father or his reputation at all. And they haven't failed me yet.

"Well," he corrected himself, "they hadn't.

"When you and Serah turned up, those wits lent a hand in deciphering all of this business with paradoxes and the correct timeline. But there was something I couldn't figure out at all. No matter how hard I tried, it remained a mystery to me. ...That something was you, Noel."

The hunter shifted, his hand slipping on Hope's shoulder, but the silver-haired man continued speaking before he could interrupt.

"I couldn't rest until I had you solved. The disappearances of Lightning and the others had kept me busy for a long time, but you and Serah dropping into my life back then gave me the tools to pursue a solution. I'd long since given up on figuring out my magic, though I still puzzled over it now and then. And so I latched onto you, in a way.

"Even that fascination with you was an enigma - before long, I was worrying over _why _I couldn't seem to shake that interest, and not what had garnered the interest itself. Today you gave me a way to figure out the problem with my magic. You gave me the string to pull to unravel that mess. And in a way, I untangled that other problem as well."

At this point, their gazes finally met. Hope turned his head to the side, chrysoprase colliding with blatantly staring sapphire.

"I had some time to take a good, long look at what was going on in my own head," he began again, hesitantly. "It's been a little bit of a mess for the past two days. When I laid everything out end-to-end, though, there was only one plausible explanation.

"Noel, I think," Hope started to say, pausing to swallow softly as nervous turquoise eyes disappeared behind light eyelashes for an instant, "I might be..." and another beat of hesitation whipped past as those same eyes flickered down, glancing away, before the imperceptible shifting of his companion's weight drew his attention once more, back to perplexed azure.

"... Falling in love with you," he finally roused himself to say.

His eyes avoided Noel's, flickering away as he bowed his head like the flame, already steeling himself for shame and rejection. He knew the confession was destined for failure. Expected that close friendship he cherished so to come crashing down around him like so much broken glass. But, somewhat morbidly, he supposed, he wanted the other to know how he felt - was just curious enough of what he would say and how he would react that he would destroy it himself.

He hoped that confessing those feelings, however misplaced, would help to release them from his system - so that he would never again have to wonder what could have come of them. If it was fated that he would have to face such tragedy over and over, have everything he cared about ripped away without fail, he ought to make the break himself - and sooner rather than later. Rejection at Noel's hands would hurt, but not as much as -

The silver-haired man was torn from his thoughts at the sound of his name slipping past the hunter's lips. "Hope," he said, and it was stern. Why was it stern? He couldn't help but wonder...had he offended his best friend that badly?

He looked up when callused fingers touched and brushed against the underside of his chin, almost flinching away at the contact before he composed himself. He was resigned to whatever outcome. There was no going back. Violence? So be it.

Those same callused fingers tilted his face gently upwards, and he closed his eyes, tensing himself for the right hook that was sure to come.

Warm breath ghosted over his face unexpectedly, as Noel said quietly, almost wonderingly, "you think _way _too much."

Their lips came together without ceremony. It took Hope a moment before he realized what was happening, and another few beats before his brain checked over the information again and confirmed that yes, this was actually happening right now, and it was at that precise instant that the brunette's hand rose to brush a few locks out of his face and slip into his hair on the right side of his head that the scientist's eyes flew open and he jerked suddenly backward, sure that something had gone horribly wrong and that he had gone quite insane.

The kiss had been chaste, but unexpected, and he raised one hand to press gently against his own mouth as he stared incredulously at Noel, who was very much grinning like a child at Candlemas. The expression confused him immensely.

"I don't understand," Hope said faintly, his hand falling limply into his lap.

The smile blessing the hunter's face turned into more of a smug smirk. The shift made him look almost wolflike, and the observation made his breath hitch slightly just as the brunette opened his mouth to speak.

"Gee, Hope," he said, "for a genius, you can be pretty dense sometimes."

His mouth pulled down at the corners and a crease blossomed between his eyebrows, the silver-haired man clearly not pleased with the remark. "Noel..." he started to say, but the thought escaped him and trailed off into the space between them that lessened quickly as the man in question leaned forward again, holding Hope in place with the weight of deep blue eyes.

When they met this time, the older man's eyes stayed open for three and a half heartbeats, unable as he was to comprehend what was happening, besides the fact that he was - kissing Noel, and what _the hell, _he was already down the rabbit hole, reason had turned on its head. So he let his lids slip closed, giving himself over to the sensation of Noel's mouth on his and pressing back himself, not sure how to reciprocate. Except when he tried to turn his head to the side to relieve his neck of a stiff kink, he smashed their noses together by accident.

Noel pulled backwards with a yelp, touching his nose gently as he growled incredulously at Hope. "What was that for?"

The older hand held both of his hands up, palm out. "I'm sorry!" he exclaimed, blushing. "I - don't expect me to know what I'm doing, Noel, because I don't..."

"We can figure that out together, then," Noel said lowly, and leaned in again. However, the silver-haired man pushed himself back on the bed, out of the brunette's reach.

"H-hold on," he blurted, hating himself immediately for stuttering, almost as much as he hated himself for the look of hurt that flashed across the other man's face for an instant, because that wasn't what he intended. No, he had a question, actually.

"When?" he asked, vaguely, staring beseechingly at Noel with wide chrysoprase eyes, half-drawing his knees up in front of himself. He looked almost childish, fourteen and uncertain again. Yes, he might have helped to save the world once upon a time, might have been the Academy's greatest example of human willpower, and might have hop-skip-jumped four hundred years into the future to oversee his plan to build a planet, but he had absolutely no idea what to do in a situation like this. He had nothing to draw upon besides his parents, who had largely kept their affection for private, and Snow and Serah - and _oh Etro, _what was going to happen when they inevitably found out about this? What would he even _tell _them?

While he had digressed into mental panicking, Noel had regarded the question thoughtfully, somehow managing to work out what Hope had meant and what he had been referring to. His voice now reclaimed the silver-haired man's attention.

"It's been coming on for a while, I think," he said slowly, resting his hands on his knees, sitting cross-legged on the bed, body partially turned toward his companion though his face was tilted away, leaving him glancing off toward the wall. He seemed to select his words carefully, which was unusual for the plainspoken young man. "I realized it in the bathroom last night. That's why I - you know. Ran off." When he turned back to face Hope, there was an expression on his face that the scientist couldn't read. Blue eyes set below brown eyebrows were hooded and unclear; chocolate-caramel locks were still slightly damp from his earlier shower, and hung partially obscuring his visage, as his head was inclined.

Hope's gaze traveled down past his nose and over his chapped lips, taking in the dark grey shirt that suggested his frame and wrinkled at the abdomen, extending over broad shoulders and cutting off halfway down his biceps. The vambrace was absent, the cracked and weathered leather conspicuously missing, though the dark ribbon and rope of tribal twine crossed and wrapped around his left arm as per usual, terminating at the beginning of his fingers. It both hid and accentuated the wire-thin lines of tiny scars and the raised ridges of larger ones. Underneath the tanned flesh of his arms, black slacks draped over his legs, fitting loosely though still evidently tighter than his typical pants.

Hope realized he had become distracted exactly as Noel cleared his throat and shook his head, apparently ridding himself of the thoughts that had consumed him. "You're not the only one with an unexplained fascination," he admitted, pointedly looking anywhere but at the other man as he spoke. "I guess... I've always been pretty good at figuring people out, you know? Everyone's got one thing that they'll give themselves up for. For Caius it was Yeul," he paused, his face contorting into something that resembled a deep-seated pain, "and for her, it was the other way around.

"At first I didn't get Serah, until I figured out the deal with her and Lightning. It was the same thing with the two of them - and Snow too. And it's always one thing. If it came down to it," he spoke hesitantly, "I think she'd pick her sister over her fiancé."

Hope, who had been looking at Noel quietly as he talked, glanced away and down towards his hands, not wanting to even entertain the possibility of seeing Serah have to make that choice.

"And that's what I'm talking about," the brunette continued after a beat, stumbling past the unwanted thought. "Lightning's her one thing. I, uh," he hesitated, shaking his head and looking at Hope, "kind of went off there, sorry. But what I meant to say was... well, I don't know what your _thing _is." Taking a moment to recollect his thoughts, he fidgeted slightly in place. "Obviously I'm not as well-spoken as you," he stalled, raising a hand to rub at the back of his head sheepishly. "I'm kind of fumbling around here. But I guess the short version is, I can't figure you out either, Hope.

"I mean, I get that you're doing a lot of this for Lightning, right?" He paused, and belatedly the scientist realized he was supposed to respond, so he nodded once, slowly, to answer - but before he could clarify, Noel did so for him. "But Fang and Vanille are important to you, too. And so is Serah, and Snow, and Sazh and his kid - and Alyssa too, I'd bet. And on top of _that, _you've sacrificed yourself for _everyone _before... not to mention the fact that you still do." He overrode Hope's protest. "We also can't forget about your mom, and your dad too. Hell, pretty much everyone you've met is special to you in some way."

The look on the other man's face was response enough. Seeing his defeated expression, the hunter cleared his throat. "I just really don't get you, Hope. You give and give and give so much it's a miracle there's any left of you to give. And then you do more besides. You're really just - something else."

There was a beat or three of silence, shared between them as they avoided eye contact, before that quietude was broken once more.

"You left yourself off the list," Hope said quietly. Something in his voice sounded fragile, which Noel noticed grimly.

"What?" he questioned, surprised by the remark, once his gaze had flicked to the older man.

"When you were talking about the people that are important to me," Hope began by clarifying, unable to meet perplexed azure. "You left yourself out."

Noel stared for a moment at the man across from him, the man he had kissed, and felt an unexpected swell in his chest. "Yeah," he said softly after a full five seconds had passed, chuckling gently as he glanced down at himself. "I guess I did."

When they looked at each other next, they were both smiling; Noel's quiet but bright, like the early sun, and Hope more subdued though just as pleasant, a shuttered lantern. The next time, also, Hope leaned forward as well, closing his eyes preemptively and letting his hand ghost just barely against the outside of Noel's thigh and up his side as their lips fit together like two puzzle pieces. By unspoken agreement, their third kiss remained innocent and gentle, almost hesitant as they both bumped blindly along, trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing.

When they broke apart, they didn't move far; Noel's digits pressed comfortably into the nape of Hope's neck, gently keeping him in place as they gazed at each other. Dazed, the silver-haired man reflected suddenly that he should probably be hyperventilating right now. He was perplexed as to why he wasn't. Knowing him, and knowing how terrified he was by even the _idea _of this situation at length, it would probably meet expectations for him to barricade himself in his closet at this point. (Hope Estheim did not _do _romance. He was allergic. Like peanuts.)

But he wasn't. Terrified. He was very calm, actually. So much so, he wondered if he was in shock. But he dismissed that hypothesis as he stared into Noel's eyes, which resembled deep, dark pools, like the Sulyya Springs. He was content to let himself get lost in those still waters.

At least, he was. Until he saw something stir. At that point, Hope swallowed dryly, shifting slightly in place - fidgeting uneasily as the silence drew out between them. Like a cord, it pulled taut, straining desperately.

Then it snapped.

A brief second later, the scientist was on his back, the hunter looming over him menacingly before he descended and forced their mouths together hungrily. The kiss was heated and desperate, and the older man felt it all the way down to his toes, especially in his lower belly. The gasp of surprise he let out at the action gave Noel the leverage to override Hope's feeble bid for dominance and begin taking over his mouth. However, the silver-haired man found himself not minding the fact that he had been relegated to the receiving end, as he quite appreciated the pleasurable sensations running down his spine, digging his fingers into the broad shoulders and strong back above him -

Something rumbled, quite suddenly and loudly, and Noel jerked away a millisecond later, sitting back on his knees with a flush dusting his cheekbones. Hope realized belatedly that the noise had come from the other man's stomach; he laughed lightly then, even as the brunette cleared his throat awkwardly. "Uh, I -"

"I'm sorry, Noel," he apologized, still smiling. "I forgot. That wound must have taken a lot out of you."

He slipped off the bed in one fluid movement, freeing his lower legs from under the younger man and padding lightly towards the door, intending to rustle up something for them to eat; a cursory glance at the clock on the bedside table yielded the realization that it was approaching nine o'clock already, and with a pang of his own, Hope realized he hadn't had much more than coffee at all that day.

"I'll make dinner," he announced after the point, pulling the bedroom door half-closed behind him.

* * *

><p>He should probably thank his lucky stars that he had managed to not make canned soup inedible, somehow. In his current state of distress, he ought not be trusted in the kitchen at <em>all <em>- he had not inherited many culinary skills on a good day, and on a day like today, when he could barely focus enough to find the matching lid for the pot... Well.

It was certainly nothing impressive, and this he related to Noel as he brought out the two bowls with a light frown of apology. The hunter shook his head and scarfed it down regardless. (As he said, it was a hell of a lot better than anything they had had when they camped out in the Void Beyond or the Sunleth Waterscape. Whether that was _praise, _though, when Hope took into account Snow's cooking ability at the least, he couldn't ascertain.)

When the poor excuse for a meal was finished, the two men leaned back against opposite sides of the white couch, the quiet between them blanketing the room comfortably. Hope eyed the television set into the opposite wall, debating flipping on a news program - he preferred to keep up-to-date with happenings around the area and the world that might not have been deemed "important enough" for someone to mention to him.

Noel looked comfortable, lounging with his back against the arm of the piece of furniture, his arms crossed and his legs pulled up onto the cushion. His eyes were closed, but the way his neck stayed somewhat tense suggested against sleep. Behind him and slightly to the right, the gray curtains were cracked open only an inch, the city outside dark but lit here and there with strips of neon.

It was as teal eyes rested upon that dark slit that the quietude was shattered; admittedly the scientist even jumped a bit as the outdoors lit up to a blinding white, the sudden stroke of lightning followed only a millisecond later by a deafening roll of thunder. He had forgotten about the storm forecast, the small detail lost amidst all the other goings-on of the evening.

Thunderstorms had always put him a little on edge, after the move to Gran Pulse. In some ways, he much preferred the unpredictable and untamed weather of the surface world, but in others he missed the certainty, the downright gentle conditions maintained by the fal'Cie. Not to mention the change in climate in three hundred and ninety years; upon doing a little bit of poking around in long-term archives and annually collected data points, he had deduced that human habitation of the lowerworld - and the technology mankind had developed along with - had altered the pattern of storm systems. The area around New Bodhum now experienced monsoons, and Academia was famous for violent thunderstorms as a result of residing at a common "dumping ground" of sorts for low-pressure systems, though it always remained just slightly too warm for snowfall and blizzards.

This extraneous information buzzed around in the adviser's brain as he stood, feeling the vestiges of the adrenaline surge coursing through his veins. He made his way back to the kitchen, ignoring the curiosity and concern radiating off the man behind him in waves - instead, he busied himself making a pot of coffee to soothe his nerves and take his mind off the storm raging outside. Droplets of water pit-pattered against the roof above, the clouds unleashing a veritable torrent of rainfall.

The white noise masked the sound of Noel's footsteps such that, with his back turned, Hope didn't realize he had moved until a hand gripped his shoulder. He turned just as another crack of thunder rumbled overhead, loud in its proximity but less unexpected.

"You okay?" the hunter asked carefully, inclining his head to indicate the coffee but maintaining eye contact with the older man. Guarded curiosity and concern surfaced in his eyes, in the turn of his mouth and the tightness of his expression.

Feeling slightly guilty for having worried Noel, even a little, Hope leaned sideways against the counter. "Yes, I'm fine," he assured the other man sincerely. "I was just startled."

Apparently satisfied, the brunette hummed quietly in response. He stooped suddenly, closing the distance between them to touch their lips, feather-light, for only as long as it took for the silver-haired man to blink; a beat later, and he had moved away, hefting himself onto the breakfast bar with a huff and leaving Hope to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing.

He cleared his throat awkwardly and turned back to the coffee maker, almost forgetting to bloom the grounds in his distraction. Inhaling through his nose in a reverse sigh, he counted to six to focus his thoughts. At four, he spoke, turning the saturated grounds over with a spoon.

"So what next?" he asked tightly, shoulders hunched, not bothering to qualify the bounds of his query.

A pause before the other man answered. "Well," he started, "tomorrow we're gonna find the other three Graviton Cores, I think."

Though he had meant something entirely different, the statement caused Hope to whirl around in surprise, almost knocking the spoon off the counter. "You found the first four?" he gasped, fumbling to secure the cutlery as he stared at the hunter sitting on the counter opposite him a few feet away.

"Yep," he confirmed, grinning. "Only ones we're missing are the two from Oerba and the one from New Bodhum." At the scientist's shocked look, he clarified. "We took a few wrong turns and picked up the other ones on the way." The good humor dimmed slightly. "We couldn't avoid the other Academia. Serah really didn't want to go back, but we had to; the wounds we picked up were from there and the Yaschas Massif. The Waterscape wasn't as dangerous as we thought it'd be - she actually ended up yelling at a couple of miniflans, believe it or not."

The silver-haired man relaxed slightly, smiling to himself. "I see," he said. "I'm glad. Hopefully the worst is behind you now." He couldn't believe it; they only required five Cores for the new Cocoon, and the Graviton Cores themselves had been their largest roadblock in the process, so even if the ones from Oerba stayed hidden, after tomorrow they would be almost home free. It was delightfully frightening to see one of his dreams so close to being realized.

He only hoped nothing else would stump them in the meantime.

"I get the feeling that wasn't what you meant, though," Noel said quietly, waiting until the roll of thunder fell away in order to speak.

There was a moment in which they simply looked at each other, but it was broken when the scientist's gaze dropped away, towards his feet on the synthetic linoleum. "I just..." he started to say, but the words trailed off, leaving him frowning in their wake.

"Hope, what's wrong?" Noel prodded. Noel, who sat on his counter and called him by his given name and gave no quarter to any nonsense or proprietary rules of etiquette, who treated him as a person and saw him and took him for who he was, and didn't really care that much that he was an unwilling celebrity or that he was the Academy's "guiding light" (or however _that _headline went) or that he had been close to Lightning and Snow and the others as fellow l'Cie.

He couldn't drag his gaze off the floor. "What is _this?_" he asked softly, gesturing vaguely to the space between them. "Noel, what are we doing?" He wanted to have words to put to whatever the hell was going on between them, because he couldn't remember the last time he had been at a loss for them; he wasn't very good at living in the moment, either. Everything in his life had a name and a reason, and this... _thing _that had begun in doubts and glances fit none of his pre-molded schemas.

Plus, he _had _to know what the other man thought; what he expected. He doubted he was the only one fumbling around in the dark with this. If it was even anything to expect anything from - and _well then, _wasn't it just like him to overthink things? When there might not even _be _anything to overthink?

"What do you mean?" Noel inquired, and the frown was audible.

He managed to school his face into something resembling impassivity, the very picture of aloof when he mustered up the energy to look up at his housemate. "What is this, Noel?" he asked again, flatly.

Apparently the change threw the hunter off; he looked taken aback at Hope's sudden coldness, so much so that he swallowed sharply and looked down at his lap. "I don't really know," he said quietly, hurt evident in his bright blue eyes. (Hope wanted to apologize instantly. Wanted to stride over and beg for his forgiveness, because he wasn't being distant to harm Noel; it was to keep himself from freaking out as everything sank in, and to dull the pain of realizing reality, in whatever form that reality check happened to take. But he couldn't. Not now, not yet.)

Tanned arms crossed in front of a flat stomach. "I don't know, Hope," he said again, more firmly. "Guess I kinda got caught up in the moment. Wasn't really thinking about things... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." He laughed without humor, looking at the silver-haired man sheepishly. "You know - look - just forget all of it, all right? Never happened."

The scientist held his gaze for five heartbeats before he deflated with a sigh, shaking his head. _So much for controlling my emotions and shutting out everything else. Sorry, Light. _"No," he said, the declaration punctuated by another peal of thunder, quieter this time. The storm had begun to move away, just a bit. "That's not what I..." His voice caught, and he cleared his throat, turning to hunt down two coffee mugs as the pot began to sputter behind him, finishing its brewing cycle.

The bang of the cupboard door as he thrust it open a little too harshly covered the sound of feet hitting the floor. When Hope turned around, then, he recoiled for an instant, having been surprisingly (to him) very very close to the lower half of Noel's face. He stumbled back a step, keeping his grip on the mugs firm even as he leaned back, unsure how to deal with the other man encroaching so much on his personal space without his "permission" of a sort. Toned arms barred his escape, as hands slammed down on the counter on either side of him, trapping his body close to Noel's own.

The startled sound that left him was overridden by the other man's voice. "Then what _did _you mean?" he growled, staring Hope in the eyes. Hurt and confusion lingered in azure orbs. "Spit it out, Hope. You're talking in circles."

It hit Hope suddenly that Noel was taking this as a rejection on unstated grounds. In hindsight, that was what it seemed like. But - that wasn't - he didn't _want _to reject the other man. He just didn't... get it. _Get _it. Understand what was going on, know what was expected of him - didn't know what -

He groped behind himself, finding a spot on the countertop to set the mugs in his hand. The hunter kept sharp eyes on him as he moved, so he did so slowly, emptying his hands. Then he brought his arms back in front of himself.

His next movement was sudden and unexpected enough that the other man couldn't react in time - in one motion, he reached up, tangling the fingers of his right hand in brown locks, and pulled Noel's mouth to his, kissing him with a chaste force that left both of them dazed in its aftermath.

And as they gently drifted apart, the look in Noel's eyes softened, as he - somehow - began to understand everything that couldn't be put into words. "Hope," he whispered, and left it at that.

The scientist glanced away. "Why me?" he asked, just as softly. "Why - does this mean anything?" The soft trickle of questions turned into a stream he couldn't dam, pouring all of his insecurities out of him. "How can this work? You're a time traveler. After tomorrow, you'll... Noel, this is impossible. We can't -"

He didn't resist as a strong hand moved to the small of his back, pulling him close to the other man's broader form. The hunter's cheek rested against the side of his head where it was tucked above Noel's shoulder, near his neck. Another bare arm looped loosely around his shoulders and back, tugging him firmly into the embrace; he relaxed somewhat into the taller man, unused to the show of affection and uncertain how to respond, his arms hanging awkwardly for a moment before he laced them around the back of the man's waist, settling them there lightly, tentatively. He was normally skittish of such personal physical interaction, but the familiar disdain that usually reared its head right about now was conspicuously absent - the hunter's embrace felt more safe than anything.

"One question at a time," he said, the action sending reverberations through his silver hair and warm breath cascading down the side of his face. Hope sighed and sagged against the brunette, his knees buckling slightly, who bore the extra weight without complaint - opposite that, he even chuckled slightly at the gesture.

"Let's start with why _you._" Calloused digits carded through silver locks as the hunter held him gently, pausing to consider his response. "You're just," he began, "_different. _Granted, the only other people I really know are Caius, Yeul, and Serah. I guess Alyssa counts too, but," he said vaguely, "you know.

"I can't really explain it," he confessed. "I don't know, you just remind me of me, sort of. Obviously you're a hell of a lot smarter -" and at that comment, the scientist laughed weakly into Noel's shoulder, "- and you have a way with words that I couldn't dream of, but we have the same idea on a lot of stuff. The same goal.

"I guess it kind of has to do with me being a Guardian, too," he continued, his tone shifting; the light teasing morphed to a sort of abject bitterness that slipped into Hope's ears and settled heavily in his stomach. "All my life I've focused everything on the seeress. It was what I was taught - and Caius was a strict teacher, let me tell you." He cleared his throat. "Yeul was my charge, my friend. There was never anything between us, and there never could be, either. She only had eyes for him - but to be honest, I didn't really mind that so much. She was like my kid sister. I wanted to keep her safe, but not romantically." He shook his head. "It just always seemed wrong, somehow.

"And then with Serah - well," he paused, pointedly, "if anything had happened between us, I'm pretty sure Snow would have had a thing or two to say about it."

Hope sucked in a breath in agreement. For a man who had risked his life on several occasions to save his fiancee, losing her, in that way, would have been the hardest hit the Hero could take. It made him quite glad that neither Noel or Serah had seen fit to start down that path, then. (Perhaps a timeline in which the two of them had begun a relationship existed, but he prayed to any god that would listen that he would never have to see or hear of it.)

"In a lot of ways, Serah reminds me of Yeul, too," he began again, after that slight pause. "Older, and more stubborn, but still someone who needs protection." He let the sentence hang for a moment. "They're both strong, but sometimes that strength makes them fragile, you know? It's my job to protect them, pretty much. Like I was born for it.

"But," he cut himself off, shaking his head, "that's not the point. The point is that you matter in a different way than they do. And," he said, "it's nice kn owing that I can turn around for five seconds and you'll probably still be fine. You're a tough guy."

Hope released a puff of air that wasn't quite a laugh. "Good to know you have so much faith in me," he said, the tone dry but appreciative.

They were still standing together, though their grips had slackened to a light draping of limbs, a slight suggestion of pressure at Hope's lower back and around Noel's midriff, as the scientist's hands had migrated upward a few degrees.

Noel did actually laugh, upon his response. "Always, Director," he said lightly, before sobering up somewhat. "It's not just that, either," he started. "Being around you is different, too. I have a lot of - I don't know - roles, I guess?" He tested the word momentarily. "Yeah. Roles. And around other people, those are the roles I'm supposed to play. All the time. I'm Noel Kreiss, the Guardian, or Noel Kreiss, the last human, or Noel Kreiss, the time traveler. All of that responsibility gets a little too heavy sometimes. I guess it's kind of selfish," he stated, "but... I kinda want to be just Noel for once, you know?"

Hope's arms tightened, wordlessly drawing the younger man a little closer. He knew that feeling.

"Around you, I don't feel like I'm playing a part," he said, the words coming out slightly softer. "It's just natural. Like if I squint a little, none of this stuff is even happening: no timeline, no Gates, no paradoxes, no Caius. Just -"

"- us," Hope said, finishing the thought. The hunter stirred, his hand resuming the soothing motion in his hair that had ceased around the mentioning of roles. The sensation was unusual, but enjoyable. "I feel the same way," he continued quietly, leaving the statement hang as a half-apology for interrupting the other man and an invitation for him to continue.

Several beats passed in silence broken only by the sound of water overhead and distant rumbling (and he hadn't even realized it was still raining). The lengthy embrace dissolved with mutual unspoken agreement; their arms fell, and Noel stepped back to return the space he had taken from Hope, who picked up the coffee mugs again and padded quietly to the coffee maker, turning his back to the other man. The pause was not awkward or tense; in fact, it held something that might have been a measure of peace within itself.

The brunette cleared his throat some time later, as the silver-haired man made up two cups of coffee. "As for whether this means anything," he started to say, folding his arms and gazing at the pseudo-linoleum beneath his feet, leaning against the counter, "it does to me. I mean, it's not like I know what the hell I'm doing, but I know myself well enough to know that I'm not the kind of guy to just mess around."

At the remark, the older man turned, some unnamed tenseness of his neck and shoulders beginning to smooth away as he handed a mug to Noel, his expression blank but his eyes wide and sincere as he gazed slightly upward at the younger. They expressed his feelings far more accurately than words could have; the relief, appreciation, and trust that came about through knowing that he wasn't the only one taking this seriously. In response, Noel smiled back. It was quiet, gentler than his usual self-assured grins.

A beat later, Hope tensed and looked away, his hands tight around his own mug. The change jarred the hunter and caused the expression to fall from his face. He took a step forward, as if to approach the scientist, but hesitated after just the one.

"What happens after tomorrow?" the silver-haired man asked, before the brunette could begin; he spoke of the time at which Noel and Serah would no longer be needed in this period. The time at which the time travelers would be whisked away to the future - or perhaps the past, the more painful of the two, for that direction was the one in which he could not follow.

The time at which, regardless of their choices, their paths - their duties - would drive them apart.

Noel's face remained still, not smiling, not frowning, as his gaze focused on the other man. "We do what we have to do," he said, his voice carefully neutral. "We stop Caius."

Hope frowned gently at that, sipping at his coffee, leaning similarly on the counter a few feet away. The white noise of rainfall outside had begun to lessen, receding further into the background. Chrysoprase drowned in dark liquid, the scientist regarding the beverage in the mug with interest, as if interested in the answers it might yield. Silence stretched on for tens of beats, a period of time long enough that the hunter began to shift uneasily, not sure how to cope with that length without action, even just talking. But Hope stayed perfectly still, almost statuesque.

In that time, the brunette observed the silver-haired man. The arc of his body resembled a strung bow, curving outwards with his pelvis resting against the synthetic surface at the furthest point. Shoulders slumped, leaving visible the side of his pale face and neck; dried blood still lingered in platinum locks, staining the strands tarnished silver. A single orb of aquamarine gazed downward, set above a strong nose, the corners of the lips below drawing back thinly.

Noel's eyes followed the line of his jaw down to a wrinkled and rumpled white shirt and turquoise tie, the underside of the Academy uniform less than pristine, lending a sense of disenchantment to the Director's appearance. The tail of his shirt hung out over his work pants untidily, the unkempt quality making him seem ten years younger; the pants cropped at the tops of light-skinned feet, leaving them bare.

He seemed an immutable carving of marble, clothed in the flesh of mortals, and his skin appeared almost to glow in the half-light of the incandescent bulbs hanging over the breakfast bar feet away.

Then he stirred, taking another draught of his coffee, and the illusion was shattered as his voice broke the silence.

"It's impossible," he sighed. "What I want is impossible, because we both have duties that no one else can fulfil."

Noel's head cocked to the side. "But what do you want, Hope?"

"It's irrelevant."

"Relevant to me," the hunter countered, settling back further. "I asked, didn't I?"

Silver locks rustled as he bowed his head in defeat. The mug rose to his lips again; Noel's own sat, forgotten, nearby.

A shuddering breath escaped the scientist as he looked up at the hunter.

"I've wanted to go with you," he murmured. "Ever since I saw you and Serah in the Yaschas Massif, I wanted to. I know now that this is where I'm meant to be, what I'm supposed to do to lend a hand - Lightning told me that. But even so..." he trailed off with a frown. "I know my end of things is every bit as important, but..."

He glanced downward. "I don't want to be left behind, Noel. The paradoxes tore my friends from me: all I have left are Alyssa, and Serah - and you. But the two of you will leave this part of the timeline after tomorrow... and there's nothing I can do but sit and wait for that to happen."

"Hope..." the brunette said softly, sliding closer to his friend. The other man in question leaned into his side as an arm was draped over his shoulders. Noel didn't know what to say to even begin comforting him, but the silver-haired man continued speaking before he had a chance to think about it anyway.

"There's no guarantee that we'll even see each other again before the timeline is restored," he despaired. "And the rules change after that, too. You're from the future; that you're here right now is a paradox. Something that should not be." The liquid in the mug swished as he moved his hand in a circle, swirling it idly. "Nothing can come of this, Noel," he said flatly, quietly.

Noel's lips drew a thin line.

"If you're right..." he started to say, but frowned and dropped the thought, approaching his point from a different angle. Though he hated himself for saying it, it needed to be said. "The timeline comes first. Stopping Caius, protecting the New Cocoon - it's all we can worry about for now, Hope. If there's time for this later, then it can wait for later. And if not..." he trailed off, wincing. The hunter wished he had at least some ability with words; he hadn't meant to end the declaration like that.

"And if not," Hope said slowly, "then we'll know, is that right?"

"... yeah," Noel choked out, feeling as if he had just royally screwed up - but not sure what else to do. "Then we'll know."

An indistinguishable noise escaped the scientist, who stared into his cooling coffee, close to Noel's side. The two of them hardly stirred but for the sound of their breathing for several seconds.

"I see," he said suddenly, downing the rest of his caffeinated drink in two swallows, breaking away from the hunter before he could react and striding to the sink, leaving the mug at its side. The silver-haired man didn't turn around when he spoke next, light-skinned hands resting softly on the edge of the fixture. "Then we can't afford distractions," he continued, speaking barely above a whisper.

"Hope?" the younger man asked, not positive he had heard the other correctly, and unsure of what he was getting at with the statement if he had.

Shoulders tensed as the scientist's back straightened. "Get some rest, Noel," he said, still not facing the brunette. His tone seemed stiff; formal. "You're going to need it."

The hunter started forward to move closer even as his quarry made for the door to his room. "Wait, hang on -" he blurted as he reached for - and grasped - Hope's arm. The grip forced the older man to turn and face Noel.

His heart skipped a beat when they met gazes. Turquoise hues remained immutable and flat, and a chill ran down the time traveler's spine as he noticed how eerily the look reminded him of - of Caius, a similarity he had noted the first time they had talked, the real first time, on a scaffolding darkened by an eclipse. (He hadn't seen that cold detachment since, he realized. Had passed it off on this being a different Hope, but they weren't really any different - and how naïve could he manage to be to think that he would ever be able to put distance between himself and the Guardian, because it seemed he was doomed to see him everywhere - _but that doesn't matter! _Because this is Hope in front of him, the guy he somehow ended up falling pretty hard for, and it's not his mentor, not by any stretch of the imagination, and he should have gotten a lot better at keeping those reminders from getting a hard foothold in his life but _dammit _it's really biting him in the ass. That was then, this is now, and he should really be focusing on the _now _because -)

Hope pulled away from him, gently but firmly, his lips pursing thinly as he turned and stepped out of the kitchen, bare feet padding on the pseudo-linoleum as he moved towards the bedroom, closing the door behind him quietly.

Stunned into silence, Noel only stood, staring blankly in the other man's wake. After a long moment, he sagged, as if a marionette with its strings cut. One tan hand rose to his face, massaging his temples as a broken sigh rattled his frame.

Something lay broken between them, more than a closed door but somehow less than five inches of space - and this was one paradox he had no idea how to solve.


	6. Chapter 6

_guess who's an asshole? it's me! i'm the asshole!_

_this isn't a prank, this is actually chapter 6. this is an actual thing._

_i'm literal garbage for having taken so long to finish this; i took a left turn in toronto somewhere and ended up in attack on titan fandom hell working on another longfic, but the last month of pure lr injected into my bloodstream has given me the ability to sit down and finish this. it jumped from 1k to 10k in like a week and that's where it's being published._

_(it's kind of a good thing that i waited, anyway, because i learned a few things about writing my other long project that i hope are reflected in the content i'll be producing from here on out)_

_if there's stuff that doesn't make sense and that doesn't have an explanation, that's because this ending was planned with a sequel fic in mind by the title of In Absentia Luci, but i have no idea when or if i'll be able to sit down and write it. i **really really really really **want to, but it'll probably take some time._

_also this ending's been planned for like a year i promise i didn't steal anything from anyone_

**_also!_**_ i'm doing another one of the **please-read-with-the-music **scenes. watch out for **(x.) **and when it pops up between two paragraphs (it isn't a line break!), please queue up **Atonement **from the **Final Fantasy XIII OST. **you'll understand._

_thankful shoutouts go to everyone in the tumblr noehopu fandom, especially Bekas, Genis Aurion, and Tango, for 1) not murdering me outright and 2) standing by me even in fandom hell. i'm so so so thankful for all of you._

_that's all i've got, i think!_

_please enjoy!_

* * *

><p><em>Drip,<em>

_drip,_

_pitter-patter,_

_pit-pat-__**squelch**_

_dripdripdrip_

_drip –_

_He opens his eyes to pitch dark._

_Blinks. Anything? Nothing, nothing to be seen. Nowhere – not –_

_He is standing. He thinks. Feels upright, in black space._

_Hears the dripping again. His breathing quiets, straining to source the sound. Rain? A stream?_

_Dripdripdrip drip_

_drop_

_squish –_

_thinks to investigate. Sound comes from everywhere at once._

_Picks a direction, tries to move straight forward; no response. Limbs made of cotton hang helplessly. Like blankets._

_Clothesline swings in the breeze, scent of fresh linen. Not here. Not anywhere._

_Remembers a string tied in a loop, a slipknot. Alone._

_Alone, he thinks._

_Not alone._

_Alone is white sand and empty sky. Dead trees and _ache.

_There is no ache. Only feels detached, trapped inside panes of glass. Mind separate from body – where is his body? Here?_

_Tries to move muscles. This time, he succeeds; breath hisses out through clenched teeth as bare palms come up against an ice-cold, flat surface. He would recoil, but his skin fuses to the material. Pain lances up his arms. The firmness beneath his fingertips grows abruptly hot, searing his skin._

_He nearly cries out, pulling away as hard as he can. Resistance locks his hands, but he is stronger. The tips of his fingers are the last to leave; they do, and the wall – the glass pane, he realizes – cracks, loudly, like ice over water. The cracks spiderweb outwards, the first thing he has seen in the pitch dark._

_The cracking persists, until all that is before him are lines of white on a black background. Dreadful silence, but for the beating of his heart._

**Crack.**

_At once, the glass wall comes down, shattering to dust. Before his feet. A cloud of particles puffs up, and he covers his face with his arms – but there is no sting._

_Something collides with the floor, making a sharp sound, like an abbreviated tinkling, piercing, crystal on stone. Once, twice, thrice; he lets his arms fall, and sees a chunk of _something_ sitting between his feet._

From the wall?_ he thinks, bends down to cup it between his hands. Turns it in his palms to ascertain the shape – heavier than glass, glittering, and not entirely clear._

Crystal, _then. Crystal, shimmering fire-red, cherry-red between his fingers. Not an artefact, but he isn't sure how he knows that._

_Something is wrong. Looking up from the chunk of crystal, he glances around the area._

_A faint light shines, a distance away, barely struggling against the ink blackness. Unblinking, he starts toward it, paying no heed to the pulsing of the crystal in his hand, rays of faint luminescence flaring out in time, like a steady heartbeat._

_Footsteps crunch on pale sand. He hurries, but the light does not move closer –_

_suddenly, he is there._

_The dim light seems to come from the person before him, illuminating frosted hair and porcelain skin from within; the man is crouched, poring over something on the ground with interest._

_With a start, he realizes the dripping noise is close._

_The man does not turn, but rises to his feet slowly, his arms hanging loose; they do not exude light, the muted glow swallowed as if something coats his skin._

_Drip_

_drip_

_drip –_

_He takes an involuntary step back as the figure turns to him. Sandals__** squelch**__, grow damp – he's stepped in something, but he's not sure what._

_The smell hits him, as sudden as a hammer blow, and he gags, raising the hand holding the crystal to his mouth, his nose, trying to block out the copper reek of __**blood, **_**blood coating the ground, **_and the man looks at him curiously, as if unperturbed by the veritable _lake _of blood they stand in._

_He looks at the ground, where the man had crouched before, and swallows hard when he sees a body – no, several, maybe five bodies dressed in military wear, faces hidden under their helmets, gathered together in a pile._

_They're still bleeding._

_He remembers the man, feels impassive eyes lingering on him, and his head snaps to the side._

"Hope,_" he breathes, as the man steps closer, thick boots sloshing through the blood easily._

"_**Noel,**__" comes the answer, calm and tender, and an unwelcome shiver courses down his spine, settling hard into his stomach as he looks closer; there is dark red coating strands of the scientist's hair, tarnishing the silver, more smears of blood marring his face appearing black in the half-light escaping his pale skin._

"_What is this," the hunter whispers, stepping back again as Hope draws closer, the crystal scraping his fingers. There is so much blood._

"_**I might need your help cleaning up,**__" the silver-haired man says, turning back to look at the bodies piled behind him._

_So much blood._

"_Hope," the brunette utters, brokenly, "w_hat have you done?_"_

"_**Hmm?**__" Silver eyebrows tweaked upward innocently. "__**Is something wrong?**__"_

Don't look at me with those eyes, _he wants to yell. _Tell me what's going on! _he tries instead._ _But he doesn't. He can't – the words die in his throat when intelligent, glittering turquoise turn to his wide sapphire, vibrant as the surface of New Bodhum's ocean._

_Hope raises his hand, holds it out to Noel, palm facing upwards – his gloves are missing, but his arms are coated with blood._

_**Drip. **__A drop rolls off the tip of Hope's finger, splashes into the growing puddle under them._

"_**You'll understand,**__" he assures him, pale as winter, pure as newly-fallen snow or unmarked white sand, covered in blood but looking for all the world as if he were merely discussing the weather._

_The crystal gives a white-hot pulse, coursing through his fingers; he flinches, nearly drops the thing into the red liquid seeping into his sandals._

"_**Noel?**__" His eyebrows are drawn together, wrinkled in concern, and then he is stepping closer, paying no heed to the blood that parts before his boots, and then he is reaching, reaching upward with a bloodstained pale hand, looking impossibly tender as he moves, his palm cupping Noel's cheek –_

* * *

><p>The hunter sat up sharply with a gasp, his chest heaving. The fabric of the throw blanket dipped and pooled around his legs, his tanned fingers tight around the cushions of the white sofa; after a handful of heartbeats, rabbit-quick, he recognized the living room of Hope's apartment.<p>

Gingerly, he touched the side of his face, expecting to feel wet blood... but there was nothing there but his own skin.

_Just a dream, _he thought, his heart still beating erratically. _Only a dream..._

He took a few deep breaths to steady himself, then opened his eyes and glanced about himself. A small sliver of space separated the two panels of the curtains covering the window; the gap allowed only a few rays of wan light to fall across the coffee table, illuminating the surface with a gray predawn glow.

Far too early to begin the day – but Noel couldn't seem to relax his muscles. He couldn't accurately recall the subject of the dream he'd had, but a nagging feeling of queasiness and panic didn't leave him... accompanied by a single heart-stopping impression of Hope, covered in blood and entirely indifferent.

Noel swung his legs over the side of the couch, standing and letting the blanket slide off him of its own volition. Stepping around the table, he padded silently across the room to the door that led to Hope's bedroom. As his hand came into contact with the metal doorknob, cold to the touch, the hunter sucked in an involuntary breath. He just wanted to check on the scientist – but their less-than-amicable parting the night before came to the forefront of his mind, giving him cause to hesitate before opening the door.

And still, the dream nagged at him.

The brunette squared his shoulders, chastising himself for being nervous. He was just going to make sure nothing was wrong. That was it.

The door glided on noiseless hinges when he turned the knob and pushed gently, and Noel peered in through the gap.

Obscured partially by the bulky comforter, the lines of Hope's left arm and back were visible from the doorway; the scientist slept in a loose curl, his knees drawn up above his pelvis and his silver hair sprawled across the pillow. If Noel held his breath, he could hear the faint whistle of the other man's breathing – slow and deep, completely at ease.

He moved across the room, coming to stand by the side of the bed. Hope faced away from him, locks of his hair draped unceremoniously over his cheek. The muscles in his face were slack, no wrinkles between his relaxed eyebrows.

No blood. Not even a trace of it – whether from yesterday or from –

Noel suppressed the oncoming deep sigh in favor of letting the man sleep, pausing with his palm hovering just above the sheet, as if to pull it higher, tuck him in more firmly. But the moment passed, and he let it fall to his side, palm damp and sweaty against the fabric of his sleep pants.

He left the room without glancing back. But even if he had, he would have been met with the same sight.

(Though his breathing was carefully measured, chrysoprase eyes at half-mast behind translucent eyelashes stared at the wall beyond his bed, listening as he was to the whisper-soft movements of the hunter.)

* * *

><p>When she awoke, it was to the feeling of stone and crystal jabbing into her arm, leaving creases and welts on the tender insides of her elbows. Not exactly the most comfortable position to sleep in, but the faint glow of the greenish rings of crystal bleeding through her fingers helped to put her mind a little at ease, the light softening the edges of the fears that hid under her blankets.<p>

Today was the day. Today was the day that she opened the box... and found whether she was alive or dead inside.

* * *

><p>If spacetime flowed like a river, branching at points and continuing in small tributaries that rejoined the main path in time, then the section she stood at the edge of was shallow, unmoving, quickly stagnating as the water flowing in caused the level to rise, to lap at the boundaries, the shore that contained the possible outcomes.<p>

There were two directions for the river to flow, from here; both narrow ditches were restrained by barriers of crystal. The deeper of the two, the outline of the expected direction of spacetime from this point on, stretched on into the distance, its edges clearly defined. The other, while it wound away at first, eventually veered back towards the first route.

The stagnant pool forming behind those crystal walls rippled with all the force of the past behind it; it wasn't meant to be dammed, but if there was one fork she wanted to examine until she understood it outright, it was this one. Here on the shore of Valhalla, she could see everything, but never enough, fast enough to understand the minute ebb and flow of the tide.

It wasn't by her power the river was dammed, either... and what it represented was also something beyond her control.

A wound healed by a touch that wasn't meant to. The smallest of candle-flames that should not have been. Though it was snuffed out quickly by the ripples of time trying to correct itself, floundering for a past that defended and justified this present, the smallest of events had done this - left the future in flux while the timeline struggled to pick between two courses.

(Or was it three? For further down the bank, the path less traveled branched again, the wayward fork twisting away from the path of the main body and veering in a direction entirely uncertain.)

She could only watch for the telltale shimmer of events that would affect the future, cement a certain path; and as she dropped to her armor-clad knees, reached out with one hand towards an eddy that glistened gold and blue, she caught a glimpse of one.

Snow, drifting along through the Historia Crux...

She could push him in a direction that would favor the smaller path. It was within her power to nudge that event - but was it to allow her to pick the outcome of the timeline? Was she allowed to do this – in the right to do so?

What level of sin would her meddling be considered?

(Further down the main stream, she saw what might be a young woman collapsing with a sigil emblazoned in her pupils.)

Her fingers, cradled in maybe-leather from the palm of a goddess, caressed just barely the ridge of the wave above the floating image of Snow. The water froze in an instant, in a circle the size of her hand, cracking in the center, spiderwebbing out.

The deed was done. She sat back on her heels, looking over her handiwork, as the tide rushed to push against the smaller crystalline dam -

In a flash as bright as lightning, the entire pool pulsated turquoise, the color resting just above the surface of the water. Quicker than thought, stilling the breath in her lungs, it coalesced into a crest, an emblem she recognized - and dreaded, not for who it championed but what it stood for.

_The Eyes - _

A loud crackle foretold the destruction of the dam, under the force of spacetime righting itself; the water slammed through, cutting a deep groove through the possibility she'd steered it toward... and careening the rest of the way beyond the next fork, taking the spidery hint of a future and carving a new path, further and further from the original pattern of the timeline.

She shouldn't have meddled. She shouldn't have -

But she saw the vision the same way the timeline's new tribute will, the glimmer of future events shown to someone who should have never been able to see them.

And she knew in that instant who the vision belonged to; who the timeline had taken as just repayment for its altered course, and why.

And if, in that timeless place wherein she fought for aeons upon moments and observed the rest, in that timeless place where the guilt for what she had done weighed down on her every muscle no matter what burden, what sin she added to her mantle - if, in that timeless place, she shed more than one tear for the newer tragedy that was to come, then no one had to see Lightning cry.

* * *

><p>Minutes after Noel retreated from his room, footsteps softened by the carpeting, Hope slid the cotton sheets from his shoulders, making steady progress towards getting out of bed and starting the day.<p>

But when he snuck a glance into the living room, peering around the doorjamb, with his mouth set in the very gentlest of frowns, he was met with –

Silence and empty space.

There was no telltale sound of another set of lungs, or pair of feet; the throw blanket was folded and neatly draped along the top of the couch, pillows and cushions neatly rearranged, as if Noel had never been there at all, vanished into thin air without a trace.

He supposed, though, that the hunter was self-sufficient – and much more intelligent than he seemed, or Hope gave him credit for, sometimes. Navigating his way through Academia in the early morning on the hunt for Serah (who was almost undoubtedly his goal) was well within his _ability, _if not his comfort zone – or what the scientist assumed his comfort zone to be.

And how much of Noel had he taken as proven fact, though his hypotheses couldn't hope to quantify the man?

He didn't deserve the mix of feelings that struck him at Noel's absence, moving unconsciously towards the kitchen, motivated by the prospect of coffee to wake him and distract him. – It had been his decision, after all, to cut whatever they'd had... whatever had been forming... short before it'd even had a chance to blossom.

In the name of the future, but his decision nonetheless.

As he buttoned his shirt, the two ends of his tie draped over his torso brushing against his fingers, he considered what there was left to do. Once the time travelers returned with the other three Graviton Cores, he merely needed to pass them on to the team heading the New Cocoon Project, ensure that the processes were streamlined with what they'd learned from observation of the Thirteenth Ark... and then he and Alyssa would be on their way. Headed to 500 AF, the projected date of the rise of their Ark.

He'd hardly become acclimated to 400 AF, and yet they'd be moving on in but a day. Granted, he'd had little time to ruminate on his circumstances – he'd been a little occupied in the last few days – but altogether it seemed, simply, just too _fast._

He knew his perception of time was skewed, given that three hundred and ninety years had passed for him in what corresponded to a good night's sleep... but it was still odd to consider that plans he'd worked to lay for years of his own life, that others had devoted their entire careers to, would come to fruition before his eyes.

... How might the future be different if not for that meeting in 10 AF? In the sunset-bathed ruins of Paddra –

That wasn't right. He recalled an eclipse –

Pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, he willed away the onset of a headache that pulsed suddenly behind his eyes. Memories in flux; he knew what that meant, and it made him nervous.

It had to be Noel and Serah at work, fixing paradoxes back and forth down the timeline – it had to be the result of further progress towards his end goal. No, their _shared _goal. A future of safety.

While his mind was in many respects his sanctuary, the thought of his memories being unreliable sent a odd shiver down his spine – but he was prepared for that, in the name of saving his friends, his family.

Hope Estheim was prepared for sacrifice. He always had been.

* * *

><p>The walk to work found him deep in his own thoughts, his collection of documents held tightly under one arm and his thermos of coffee in the other; as such, he failed to notice the whispers, slight like faint hisses of wind, that seemed to follow his footsteps down the streets and around each corner, passersby turning heads and speaking in hushed voices.<p>

For that reason, he was not prepared for the reactions of the various civilians and Academy workers milling about the foyer of the Academy headquarters when he stepped in, the travel mug of coffee held to his lips.

He nearly choked on the mouthful when he looked up.

"It's the Director," he heard someone say just before the applause began, and while his immediate first thought went to the lacking correctness of the statement (he was nothing more than an adviser in this era), the sight of smiling faces and clapping hands drew him up short, left him uncharacteristically gaping and at a loss for words.

That wasn't right. Had he missed something, too wrapped up in his thoughts - of the New Cocoon, of the timeline, of Serah, and of Noel - to properly take into account what was happening around him? He wasn't forgetting about a crucial conference -

He saw Samuel shouldering his way delicately through the crowd at that moment with a modicum of relief, informally pinned as he was by the quickly growing crowd; the Academy's current Director just about stumbled past the innermost ring to the tune of several whoops and cheers, and approached Hope with what almost appeared to be uncertainty, or maybe - possibly - intimidation.

"What's going on?" Hope hissed, leaning forward and hunching his shoulders just the slighest so as to best reach the man's ear.

Taking hold of his elbow, Samuel Belhart guided the off-kilter adviser through the crowd that parted respectfully before them; at first he didn't answer amidst hands and faces, but once they had broken free, walking together then towards the inner sanctum, the man side-eyed him for a moment.

"After the move you pulled yesterday, I don't know why you would have expected anything different, sir," he said, frank but with the trace of a laugh dancing around his mouth.

"What do you mean?" Wide-eyed, perhaps in another time Noel would have told him how surprise looked good on him.

Belhart stopped, turned on the heel of his boot to face Hope; had his head cocked just the slightest in indication of a question. "You don't remember? You sure rocked the place, giving a speech drenched in blood - an interesting touch, I'd add -"

"Hardly _drenched,_" he countered immediately, before the rest of the statement filtered into understanding and a proper rebuttal. "- It wasn't exactly a speech," he managed to protest faintly, the bulwark opening before them to admit entry to the control room.

"You could have fooled me," the current Director said wryly, and Hope was struck for a moment at Samuel's sudden level of comfort with him. Wasn't it just a few days previous that the man balked at the prospect of calling him by his first name? … It was refreshing to see such candor.

(But almost the tiniest bit irritating, as the man flashed him a knowing look, as if he understood more than he was letting on; there was something he was missing. He'd become an overnight sensation before, he unfortunately knew the feeling, but something was different about this situation, clapping and hollering when once there would have been distant admiration.)

He didn't have the mental capacity to deconstruct his sudden increase in fame as well as handle the last few details of the New Cocoon Project, so he pushed the former to the side for a while. It would simmer at the back of his mind, but for the time being, his resources there were taken up by thoughts of –

He hated to admit it –

Out of everything he expected to feel about the night before, remorse wasn't something he had tallied. Why was he feeling guilty about the conversation with Noel? He had been _right. _The future came first, before any of their wants and wishes; they both had sacrificed for it, a vision of someday with Vanille and Fang safe, Lightning back with them… and all of Noel's dreams fulfilled as well, a future for humanity that didn't end in a footnote, muddled skies and white sand.

Why was he left feeling as if he'd made a mistake?

* * *

><p>They'd both been in their own thoughts, really, speaking to each other minimally and only about the most idle of observations or realizations; solving the anomalies in Oerba, 300 AF, hadn't required all that much teamwork, as they took turns traversing the Temporal Rifts under Mog's guidance. The moogle in question either didn't seem to notice that his two friends were being distant, or had concerns of his own that he didn't share with either of them. But whatever the case may have been, it was only thanks to Mog that they hadn't each wandered into a few monsters in moments of extreme distraction.<p>

"Are you okay, kupo?" he asked of Serah eventually, bobble dangling right between her eyes, while she cupped her hand to another cut she could've easily avoided were she in the right state of mind, healing it easily with a Cure; while the slip-up was easily rectified, she had still made it, and that was of concern.

Noel tuned into the conversation quickly enough to hear her stuttered "Yeah", which was hardly reassuring, but her silence afterward spoke of unwillingness to share what was on her mind. He thought of asking, but he figured that wasn't really fair. He'd been doing just about the same, after all, wandering around with his head put on backwards.

He knew better than that.

As Serah stood up fully, he turned to her sharply, both hands clapping down onto her shoulders; startled, she almost recoiled, but held Noel's gaze evenly (if with a shade of trepidation).

"I won't ask what's up, but we _need _to focus," he said, as much to himself as to her. They were both in a funk, and it was going to get both of them killed at this rate. "We're out here to survive, get those Cores and bring them back to Hope. Time enough for thinking when we're back in the Historia Crux, but out here we've gotta stay on our toes."

Serah blinked – twice – three times, before she nodded in agreement, flashing a lopsided grin with a sparkle in blue eyes that hadn't been there before.

"You're right," she said. "We'll get through this. The future's on our shoulders, remember?"

"Exactly," he said, and the relief he felt could be attributed to a few different things – not least of all having something to distract himself from thoughts of the night before, or the morning thereafter.

But when they stepped out of the Gate onto the crater in New Bodhum, three years after the Fall, Serah fell to absolute silence once again; spoke only when spoken to by her friends from that era, Gadot (if he remembered right), Lebreau, Maqui, and Yuj with the funky hair.

Nothing else to say even with the Core hovering inches from her hands, turning back and looking over the shorefront with what might have been mist in her eyes as the Gate behind them activated, reconnecting to the Historia Crux with a whir of paradox energy.

Saying goodbye. As if this time, she could accept that it would be the last time she would see this place.

Neither of them spoke after that. They floated through the red-orange netherspace in dead silence, such a sight drifting past their eyes unseen, unprocessed by either of them.

They had them. All seven Graviton Cores, but what he felt wasn't excitement, wasn't anticipation; rather he was a man approaching his execution. While Serah looked behind them with grief, leaving her home for probably the final time… he looked forward with the same, not wanting to return to the place that had turned into a sort of home for him as well, only to have to leave it again.

His home couldn't come with him.

* * *

><p>The Historia Crux, by definition, could not exist in the very same space and time as each of its branches; as the path through the Void Beyond, it served as a route connecting spacetimes. Thus, Snow may have been drifting through another branch of the Crux at the same time as his fiancée and her companion – or it may have been days, months, years different, forward or backward or time flowing in a circle.<p>

Nevertheless, drifting he was along the Historia Crux, cracking his knuckles in his leather gloves as his eyes flicked from "exit" to "exit", hunting for a telltale flash of chromed buildings or silvery hair. Looking, with his mouth stretched in a cocky smile, for the Academia that existed in the timeline without the proto-fal'Cie Adam, the timeline they'd gotten right so far.

"Light's told me what I gotta do," he said to himself, rolling his shoulders. "I'm coming to save your ass, kiddo. And then Serah and I are gonna deal with this Caius guy _our _way."

* * *

><p>"It's Serah! It's Noel!"<p>

The shout was pitched high, high enough to carry as they touched down from the Gate; automatically Serah pivoted on the heel of one of her shoes, looking around for the person who'd called her name, while Noel blinked, doing the same.

A young girl, from the looks of it, standing on the next cross street, was waving at them as powerfully as she could, the motion of her arm almost throwing her off-balance in her vigor. The sight perplexed Noel – how did she know his name? – but Serah, unexpectedly, laughed and raised her hand in return.

"What –" he wondered aloud as the girl smiled and turned away, falling silent and raising an eyebrow as Serah faced him.

There was life back in her eyes again, he noted. The cheer wasn't false.

"You mean you don't know?" she teased, wagging a finger in front of his nose – _definitely _an Alyssa quirk she'd picked up, and he likewise wondered if he'd appropriated any of Hope's – with an air of amusement. "We're heroes!"

"… You mean we weren't?" he half-joked, still not understanding.

"That's not what I mean," she corrected, turning to step towards the moving sidewalk that would begin to carry them towards Academy headquarters, as if antsy to be on her way. "I mean Hope made a speech yesterday –"

"He did?" _He didn't mention anything about that. _"When?"

"That's the funny part. It was playing on news networks _everywhere _last night, but from the looks of it – yesterday evening. That's why he got to his apartment after us. I guess he stayed behind to make a _speech. _Who knew?" She giggled. "I remember when he couldn't as much as look me in the eye, you know. It still surprises me sometimes."

But that still didn't explain what it had to do with _them, _Noel realized, pursing his lips at her amusement – if he understood what he'd learned of Hope the last few days, he had a lot of talent… but was also a little vulnerable in some areas. He strove to keep his personal and work lives as separate as possible; yeah, they were working with him professionally, but still.

How much of last night had to do with whatever speech he'd had to construct out of nowhere?

How much vulnerability had he been trying to make up for, to guard, in their very last conversation?

"He talked about his mom, too," she said, a faint twitch of her upper lip the only remnant of the smile, attaching an appropriate somber air to the mention of Nora Estheim. "Even I got a little emotional –"

He was walking before he even realized, breaking into a run down the ramp as the statement processed, Serah's surprised exclamation going unheard. Because he knew – he knew she was one of the sorest topics of all, and with the memories he'd had Hope dredge up just the night before he'd found himself backed into that corner…

He hadn't even known. Hadn't even realized what kind of open wound Hope had been nursing when he'd sprung _that _kind of shit on him; knew full well from his own experience just how painful it was to keep reopening them when maybe they'd just begun to scar over, hurt plenty from the way Caius had been doing that to him throughout their entire journey in the pursuit of his own objectives. Yeah, maybe Hope had done it to him accidentally once, that night in the Yaschas Massif, but that was out of professional curiosity – and it wasn't even the same damn Hope.

The line of thought had him considering even how much the mere _sight _of him rubbed it in Hope's face, that he had all these dreams and wishes and prior injuries and couldn't do anything about them besides stand by and encourage others to solve his problems. How many times had Noel himself popped in and out of an era Hope resided in, widening _that _wound, too?

It'd occurred to him that his and Serah's efforts might – _would _– irrevocably and unforgivably alter the lives of people in the timeline, but he'd taken Hope's assurance that together they would fix the future as an excuse to justify his actions.

Not only that… but maybe he'd taken the excuse of protecting Hope as a means to avoid thinking about the ways his mere presence, his mere existence probably opened and reopened those same wounds in the man, like a survival knife between the ribs.

His appearances in each era were themselves paradoxes that he caused, trying to set the timeline to rights; not only that, but he was a living, breathing reminder that someone or something had deemed Hope _not good enough. _As if his motivations were less valid than Noel's and Serah's, as if he couldn't do as much – and if it was the goddess who'd put Noel in this position, or maybe Lightning herself, he might have a few words to say.

Because he'd done a grand job of hopping up and down the timeline, failing to look past his own nose, causing as many paradoxes as he tried to resolve.

… If it was a matter of résumé, then Hope sure as hell was a better candidate than he was.

* * *

><p>He strode with purpose through the city of Academia, Serah doing her best to hurry behind him; when Noel was on a mission he covered distances almost as rapidly as a chocobo, something she had always failed to understand. Maybe it was the hunter's blood in him, allowing him to harness his fight or flight instincts more effectively than she could. But the thought was extraneous, distracting; she tried her best not to trip on a ridge of steel foretelling a moving sidewalk, jealous of the way Noel seemed to glide right over the obstructions in his path.<p>

He hadn't seemed too happy to return to Academia, for some reason. What had gotten into him now?

Was it something to do with Hope? With what she'd told him about the speech he'd, apparently, not known about?

… He didn't seem angry. She'd hear him stomping about from here. The intensity was there, maybe even more so than usual, but she was pretty sure he wasn't going to punch a hole in anything. So that, at least, was a relief…

But she still told Mog, with a push to the back of his head to egg him on, to keep up with him and make sure he didn't get himself into any trouble. There was to be no stopping him, running down the stairs as he was on the way to the building, leaping fearlessly over a gap in the road that opened into five hundred floors of empty space, so she at least wanted to make sure _someone _could keep an eye on him, if she couldn't.

If it was a matter of being in shape – it wasn't like she sat around all day every day, but it looked like she had a _lot _of endurance to build up.

"Noel! Slow down, kupo!"

It wasn't like he didn't hear Mog, caught off-guard by the sound of the moogle's voice, but he was in a hurry. He had more than a few things to apologize for, and he had no idea how long they'd been gone for in this era – how long Hope had had to ruminate on how insensitive Noel had been, even if just by failing to ask what was _wrong._

He failed to respond to the whispers that sprung from his footsteps like wildflowers, as well, failed even to notice them as he cut across the room, admitted by the bulwark without even having to pause.

It was relatively quiet inside the control room; the sounds of his footsteps resounded off the metal, sandals clacking loudly against the flooring. Undoubtedly the noise disturbed the peace, as Hope – standing before the large holosphere in the center of the room with a coffee mug in hand – was the first to turn, eyes growing wide behind the rim, scarcely able to turn it level so that it wouldn't spill before Noel crashed bodily into him with all the force and tact of a behemoth, nearly bowling Hope over.

He would have fallen if not for the arms that wrapped around him, one at his back and the other at his waist, pulling him close to the hunter in an embrace that was _entirely _too intimate for public.

"Noel?" he tried to ask, barely able to get the question out from the rather magnificent job Noel was doing if he was indeed trying to suffocate Hope.

"I'm sorry," was all the hunter responded with, saying nothing further and only stepping back when Hope managed to put enough force behind a shove to his chest.

"What do you –" –_ mean? _he started to ask, but shook his head. "Not here," he said lowly, glancing to the other scientists in the room, most of whom were doing their best to hide their eavesdropping ears behind their monitors. Instead, he quite gently set his mug down on the tiny almost-a-desk next to the holosphere's interface.

"So, then," he said, looking towards the sphere, away from Noel; as if the sphere symbolized his new Cocoon, the one they both had been working towards building. "You're back."

"Yeah," Noel said, the subtlest of sighs escaping him just before the affirmation. "We –"

"We have your Cores, Hope!"

Noel jerked at the exclamation, turning around with guilt evident in his frame; he'd been too caught up in himself to remember it wasn't just his success to declare. They'd both done it.

Serah sagged into him, panting, and he bore her weight without complaint, as Mog scowled at him as best a moogle can.

"Sorry for the underwhelming surprise," she joked. "This bozo took right off and ruined our timing. I guess he wanted to see you _bad._"

"Is that so?" Hope phrased the question lightly, shooting Noel a glance from the corner of his eye. "Though, I suppose we can't really start until –"

The last member of their party burst through the bulwark with a shout. "You can't start the victory party without me!" Alyssa declared indignantly, clutching a bag to her chest as she jogged lightly up the steps.

Hope's tiny sigh at her exuberance went unheard as the trio turned to welcome her, all smiles – and all genuine, no trace of stiffness in any of their faces. Because all irritation was pushed to the side, for the moment; this was their common goal, and they'd done it.

They'd done it.

The sharpest of thrills went through Noel's body at the sudden realization – with enough Cores to levitate the new Cocoon, their arrival once more in Academia should have repositioned the timeline. His hand flew to Serah's shoulder, causing her to glance at his worried face in confusion.

"Are you feeling all right?" he said under his breath, having sensed Hope's eyes flicking to him and not wanting to dampen the celebratory mood.

"Yeah?" she said, but it was more of a question; she'd regained her breath, for the most part, and stood on her own power. Thoughtfully, she raised a hand to brush back a lock of her bangs. "Yeah. I'm good."

Good," Noel responded, relieved; the smile he cracked was then truly devoid of inhibitions, of doubts.

She was carrying the Cores. Half of them, rather. With the way they repelled each other when kept in a contained space, there was no way for one bag to manage all seven; therefore, Hope looked down at two worn leather satchels, containing all seven of his Cores, with an expression that was carefully controlled but for the sparkle in his turquoise eyes.

"I still can't believe it," he whispered. He looked up to the pair. "If you don't mind, I'd like to –"

"They're _yours, _Hope," Noel stressed, fake exasperation lightened by his grin. "You don't need to hold back, alright?"

Taken aback, the scientist blinked once; then, like the faintest crescent moon glimmering from behind a cloud, a ghost of a free smile crept across his features as he fell to opening the bag in Noel's hands, untying the strap fastening the lid to the body (and distantly observing the craftsmanship, scraps of leather sewn together with strong cord, the bottom of the rucksack reinforced with an extra layer – _smart_) and tucking it back.

By some miracle he managed not to drop the first Core he'd gotten a hold of. Though he hadn't really touched it with his hand – the repellent force pushed back from his palm in such a manner that he just about had to _scoop _the damned thing out of the bag, in less a triumphant movement than he would have preferred.

It reminded him of the one Artefact he had ever handled, back in the Yaschas Massif –

"Hope?"

Serah was looking at him in concern, the only one of the three paying attention to the way his free hand had moved to his forehead, gloved fingers rubbing at the bridge of his nose to offset the sudden flare of a headache; Alyssa was rummaging in her bag for something under Noel's watch, having called for his attention before she started digging.

"The nascent Gate on the east side's all fixed and working normally!" she chirped as she pushed aside binders and books, propped up on one leg with her other folded over it as a sort of makeshift table; there was no possible way she could remain standing like that, but somehow she managed to keep her balance. "And next to it I found –"

" – an Artefact!" Serah exclaimed, letting Hope take the bag from her hand and moving closer to eye the chunk of rock and crystal, surprised that it had been so _easy._

The Academy had the Cores (well, really, Hope had them, both leather sacks dangling from one hand as he tried to tuck the hunk of matter back into one as best he could), their Gate was fixed, and they didn't even have to go hunting for the Artefact. It seemed clear enough – clear that they were on the right track towards resolving all these paradoxes.

_Maybe we can do this, _she thought with a smile. _Bring Lightning and Snow home. Raise the new Cocoon. Save the future._

"_**FREEZE!**_"

Serah stumbled back at the sudden shout, jerking away automatically, an instinct that had stayed dormant since her time as a l'Cie but reared its ugly head in times of shocked uncertainty –

Noel recoiled as well, raising his hands in the air automatically, a repeat of the situation that had occurred when they first stepped out of the Gate in the Bresha Ruins all that time ago, following Serah's wordless direction in "social" situations he had no prior experience with.

The sounds of hurried footsteps on metal, heels of ASR soldiers clacking on the flooring to the tune of shouts like "Stop her!" and "Step back!" masked the _thump _of the two bags of Cores hitting the walkway, falling from Hope's unfeeling hands, the seventh Core slipping out and "bouncing" away as best it could with the repellent force acting against the influence of gravity and momentum on its path.

"What –" he tried to say, watching uncomprehendingly as the group of armed soldiers crested the stairs, one making to drive Alyssa – scared, confused, quivering _Alyssa, _his assistant, his friend – to her knees.

The tone that escaped him was much darker than he'd been trying for. "What's the meaning of this?" he ground out, sharply, striding over to the soldiers who kept their weapons trained on Alyssa unflinchingly.

Alyssa. Whom, as far as he was aware, was hardly capable of harming a fly.

The soldier whom had made to grab the Artefact from her hands growled as she clutched it close to herself, to her chest, curling over it as if it were something precious, not sparing Hope so much as a glance; he never wanted this authority, but it irked him to see it questioned, as he moved to stand between them, pretty damn _unappreciative _of the way the regiment was waving guns around, safeties flicked _off _for Etro's sake, inside the Academy's inner sanctum.

"There had better be a good explanation –"

"Whoa, kiddo, you might want to take a step back."

His head snapped to the side faster than he thought it ever could, identifying the speaker even before his mess of hair became visible over the stairs, thinking the name even as Serah gave it voice, spoken in quiet wonderment, the only sound in a moment of dead silence when all of the soldiers had clamped their mouths shut.

"Snow –"

"Hope I'm not late to the party," Snow Villiers said with a cocksure smile, looking perfectly at ease, and an expression like that hadn't _pissed him off _as immediately as it did then, at least not since he had been fourteen years old, because _what the hell was going on?_

"Director," Alyssa pleaded, drawing Hope's attention from Snow, from Serah and Noel behind them lowering their arms slowly, "I –"

"Don't even _try, _missy," Snow interrupted, seriousness taking over his voice, striding with heavy steps toward Alyssa who held her Artefact close, shaking in place with an automatic rifle trained on her forehead –

made as if to move right past Hope when the scientist stood in front of him, barring his way, the most terrifying expression he could muster on his face.

_**(x.)**_

"What the _hell _are you doing arresting my assistant, Snow?" he demanded, not budging an inch when the man looked at him in exasperation. Maybe it was fine for Serah to let her fiancé run amok, unknowing of the motivations behind his actions, but he wanted _answers _before he was going to let one of his colleagues, one of his _friends, _be treated like some common criminal; he knew he should probably trust Snow's judgment, since it seemed the man knew something he didn't, but –

(- he doesn't admit it, but maybe it's got something to do with that still-raw injury of losing his family to the timeline, cauterized but not able to heal, and he doesn't want to even _consider _what kind of explanation Snow might have for this -)

"Saving your life," the taller man answered, just as terse. "And theirs." Undoubtedly he was referring to the pair of time travellers standing behind them, rapt in their confusion, standing very, very still. "Ask her yourself, where she got that Artefact of hers."

He felt his heart drop into his stomach. _That –_

But when he turned, the desperate expression worn like a mask on his faithful assistant's face mutilated her visage, fingers like claws caging the luminescent green crystal in them like a buoy, like her life depended on it.

"Director Hope," she rasped, fragile, unable to meet his eyes fully. Ashamed. Desperate and ashamed and _terrified _and –

"What have you done?" he whispered, looking at her as if he'd failed her; unsure what she was fighting for, but sure he had done something wrong, to drive her away so, that she clung to a crystal as a young child might cling to a teddy bear, an emblem of security.

And there were tears in her eyes; unshed, but growing, and he was _not prepared _for any of this.

(How deep ran this betrayal?)

"Caius gave it to you."

She sniffed as she looked up sharply, gaze traveling past Hope, past Snow, to Noel, his teeth gritted.

"Didn't he?"

Her silence was enough, answer enough that he'd hit the mark, as she tried to curl even further in on herself, faced with so many enemies, such opposition to whatever selfish goal she held that she would _cooperate _with the man who single-handedly sought to destroy their future –

"Why?" Hope couldn't stop himself from asking, both gloved hands curling into fists, leather creaking in the silence that pervaded. "Why would you –"

"_You _of all people should understand!" Alyssa shouted suddenly, standing up straighter, blue eyes on fire, glaring at her superior with venom in her mouth. "You of all people know what it's like, to know you should have _died _but you survived because you got _lucky! _To know that everything you've achieved could just as easily not have happened at all if only one thing had been different… to know that your life was never supposed to mean anything at all!

"I should have died in the Purge," she admitted angrily. "_I'm _a paradox. If Noel and Serah keep on with their journey, everything I've ever worked for could be erased in a moment, as if I never was. I was never supposed to mean _anything. _I was just some dumb kid from Palumpolum who got pulled in too deep just trying to survive, just as easily a name on a monument as a name in a history book! I can't _imagine _how relieving it must be, to not jump at every shadow, to know you were on the right side of fate just that _one _time. But it could have just as easily been me, Director. And if you were in my situation, you would do the same thing! To let yourself have _worth!_ To prove that you were _meant_ to survive!"

He stared turquoise daggers at the floor, unable to even look at her, Alyssa's words rattling around in his brain. For how long had she watched him with envy, doubting each of her successes just as much as she celebrated them? For how long had she dreamed of the death that should have been, that day, the beginning of the end?

His fists tightened further.

Did he _deserve _to stand in this spot when, with the flip of a coin, the beat of a wing, their positions could be reversed?

The dead silence was stirred by the sound of light steps on the metal walkway, not as heavy as boots or heels but still striding with purpose. _Tap-tap. Tap-tap._

"You're wrong," their owner said softly. "You couldn't be _more _wrong, Alyssa."

The hand on his shoulder was the catalyst, allowing him to drag his eyes up from off the floor and turn to his left – turn to see Noel standing beside him, twine-laced hand gripping the cloth of his Academy uniform.

"You and Hope are nothing alike," he declared, not so much as glancing to the man of whom he spoke, blue eyes glimmering almost violet in the room's lighting, focused on Alyssa unflinchingly. "Because he'd never stoop to this. Even if – even if Caius told him the same thing he told you. Promised him a way to stay alive – he'd never take it.

"He's too selfless for that. The lives of people would come first. The future would come first. And if he had to sacrifice himself to see his dreams realized – if it really did come to that, well…" The lift in his voice covered for the hitch Hope just barely heard, covered by the sound of Noel's sigh. "We both know he'd pick the world ten times out of ten."

Noel shook his head, jaw tightening. "I'm not saying you're wrong, Alyssa." The grip of his fingers tightened as well, felt through the thick layers of fabric. "Etro knows how many lives I've screwed up, just trying to make things right. You deserve to exist. I _want _you to exist. And I'm not gonna ask you to forgive me for putting you at risk. But for what it's worth… I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

The apology hung in the air for a span of seconds, the stillness of the room exacerbating the long pause of silence from the young woman who could look none of them in the eye, arms loose around the Artefact that had promised her a life, a future.

"I…" she murmured, the sound barely a whisper past her lips. "I can't accept your apology, Noel. I'm sorry, but I…"

"Alyssa," Hope said. Just her name, while at the same moment Snow gestured with a jerk of his head for the soldiers, watching the scene from afar, to detain her.

She didn't resist, letting the Artefact be taken from her hand, letting her arms be pulled behind her, unable to catch the tears that finally fell, clinging to her lashes and sparkling green in the light from the holosphere.

"I'm sorry, Hope," she whispered, eschewing titles for the first time he could remember. His assistant didn't look at him, choosing to stare at the floor instead. "I don't know what else to do."

And as he watched her being led towards the Academy lobby with her hands in shackles, watching her leave and unable to lift a finger in her defense, he thought, _I don't know either._

* * *

><p>"We've gotta get moving," he said, a hand falling to grasp one of Serah's, large fingers encompassing her smaller ones as she looked up at him in surprise.<p>

"Get moving where?" she asked, turning to face her hero fully and catching a glimpse of Noel squeezing Hope's shoulder before they both turned to face their friends.

"Caius is on the move," he said, glancing to both the scientist and the hunter. "And it's about time we take 'em on _our _way, don't you think?"

"Hang on a moment," Hope interrupted, before Serah could respond. He still looked a little shaken from the events that had just transpired, but the way he propped his hands on his hips, confronting Snow with an air of accusation, was almost...

Well, let it be said she had to hide a smile behind her hand.

"You can't think that you can just waltz in, drop a _bomb _like that, and just take off again. But it looks like you were planning on doing just that, huh?" He continued without letting Snow get a word in edgewise, silver eyebrows furrowed mid-tongue-lashing. "I shouldn't be surprised. You always do that. Do whatever you want, even if it means leaving people behind. Snow, you haven't changed at all!"

"Ouch, kiddo," the man responded, releasing Serah's hand to hold his up in defense. "I come to save a bunch of butts and I get this kind of welcome?"

"I'm _older _than you," he groused on principle, allowing the rest of Snow's words to go unchallenged. He wasn't ungrateful - he was thankful, really.

He was just _irritated._

"Play nice," Serah said to both of them offhand, rubbing the top of Mog's head; he had clung to her hair in fear through the entire ordeal, too terrified to make a single noise, and was only now confident enough to flutter more than a foot away from her. "Can we talk outside? The air in here is …"

She trailed off the thought, but they all felt it; lingering tension going stale like a bad taste in the mouth.

"Then I can yell at this rockhead properly," Hope said under his breath, only just loud enough for Noel beside him to hear, met with the sound of a quiet chuckle.

Someone had already gathered the Ores that should have been scattered all around their feet, he noticed, following behind Snow and Serah and doing his best to stay engaged in what Snow was saying – he knew it was important, caught "Caius" once or twice but had only a blurry image in an Oracle Drive to put to the name, but his attention was fraying, feeling as if he needed time to process everything that had just happened.

_Alyssa was meant to die in the Purge. She survived because of a paradox… was meant to die before the Fall, but lived through a wrinkle in the timeline. But wasn't Lightning's disappearance the _first _paradox? Then –_

"I never wanted to sacrifice people," Noel murmured, inches from him, undoubtedly lost in his own thoughts as well, but drawing Hope's attention out of his musings by the tone of his voice. "Even if it means fixing the timeline… I never wanted to hurt anyone."

Shielded from the prying eyes of bystanders in the Academy lobby through which they moved by the angle of their bodies, Hope reached out without thinking and took hold of Noel's wrist – not quite his hand, but the sentiment was there.

"She chose her path," he said, low and serious, ensuring that Snow and Serah wouldn't hear what he said. The words weren't necessarily meant for their ears. Snow wasn't bothered, and Serah – Serah inherited that Farron determination that allowed her to shut out feelings until a more appropriate time at which to deal with them became apparent.

(Light had taught him that, too. He was getting rusty.)

"She chose to trust Caius instead of us," he continued, the words just as much for his own benefit as to relieve the weight that had settled visibly on Noel's shoulders. "You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved."

"Maybe you're right," the hunter whispered back, his eyes on the back of Serah's head rather than looking at Hope outright. "But we'll never know for sure."

* * *

><p>There were Caiuses in the past, present, and future. And they all had to be stopped.<p>

Snow's mission had led him up and down the timeline, setting paradoxes to rights; Caius, however, made a point of voiding his efforts, putting paradoxes back to the way they had been as if Snow had never been there at all.

"Where's Lightning in all this?" Noel asked. _She's been trying to keep him busy in a war at the end of the world. Hasn't that helped at all?_

"She's on the job," Snow said, shifting in his seat aboard Shiva, the Gestalt form of his Eidolon. (When he had summoned the ethereal creature – creatures, really, the Shiva sisters were twins - Hope found himself taking the smallest of steps back, beset with a few unpleasant memories that had taken shape encased in their ice.) "With Sazh and Dajh."

At those names, Hope jerked upward. If Sazh and his son were, too, then that accounted for… everyone.

Everyone who could be was on the Caius job.

Everyone – but him.

"What can I do?" he asked of Snow before he could stop himself, not noticing Serah's surprised glance; the moment of silence and the look on Snow's face, though, made him nervous suddenly.

"Stay alive."

_What –_

Snow's voice was soft, serious, focused. "Listen. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but –

"- You're going to be assassinated exactly three days from now."

Serah's and Noel's startled "What?"s went unheard under his noise of surprise. "_Me?_" _Why - ? In this era, I don't represent anything. The New Cocoon Project is on track, and –_

Snow kept talking, unfazed by the reactions. "Without you, we might as well forget about having any kind of future. 'Without Hope, we're done for.' So it's important that you do everything in your power to protect yourself."

He couldn't stop the stammer no matter how hard he tried. "R-right," he responded, "but –"

"He won't be doing it on his own."

Noel held Snow's gaze evenly when the man looked up, raising an eyebrow. "I'll protect him. That future won't come to pass."

"So you're volunteering?" Snow shot back, flashing a grin. "Fantastic. I was just about to put you on guard duty."

"And what are you gonna do?" The way they fired questions at each other was so distinctly competitive that Hope found himself forcing down the urge to roll his eyes, despite the tone of the conversation – and despite the odd feeling in his chest at the turns the events had taken.

"I'm going to the future to greet Caius with my _fist,_" Snow elaborated, raising his for emphasis. "But before all the fun happens, I got thirteen different eras to visit. There are a bunch of crystals with my name on 'em."

"Thirteen different eras?" Noel parroted, glancing at Serah in confusion as if to ask why he'd never heard anything about this – but his companion wasn't looking at him to give a proper response. So he looked to Snow instead. "Not one to sit still, huh?"

Serah looked up when her fiancé turned to her, offering his hand. "Serah, come with me, okay?"

There was a beat of hesitation that seemed to stretch into an hour as she thought over the decision. _What would happen if she refused? _If she chose instead to continue Noel's and her mission – even without him?

And what would happen to their task, appointed to them by Lightning herself?

"Okay," she agreed, taking hold of his hand, locking the future in stone, the last key decision to be made before the timeline altered itself to suit the path it had been pushed towards.

Watching Snow pull his fiancée onto the motorcycle, Noel didn't realize what was happening until he heard her gasp, turning just quickly enough to catch sight of Hope falling to his knees gracelessly on the cobbles, sightless, hands flying to his face and covering his eyes.

"Hope!" he exclaimed, moving to his side faster than either Snow or Serah could react, frozen in place with concern; the occurrence was unexpected. Had he fainted?

He felt as if he was struggling to breathe, dropping into a crouch to see what was going on, to understand what he was watching; he reached to take hold of both of Hope's wrists, to pull his hands from his eyes, and was met with little resistance.

They were wide. Unblinking. Turquoise, they stared at Noel without sight, without comprehension.

But superimposed over his pupils the crest shone.

Unmistakable.

"No," Noel said at the sight, shock and disbelief. "_No._"

"Noel, what's going on?" Serah asked, worriedly, not hearing quite the content of the mantra that Noel had begun to chant as if it would somehow fix this, change what he was seeing. "Is he –"

"It's the Eyes," he rasped, interrupting the young woman but not turning to her as he spoke, his hands still clasped around Hope's wrists, a myriad of denials not changing the situation.

"He's – he's having a vision."

* * *

><p><em>to be continued.<em>


End file.
